The Board of Finance at its July 10 meeting voted to postpone approval of the Hampton Elementary School budget until the State has ascertained the district’s Minimum Budget Requirement. The Educational Cost Sharing grant, awarded annually to the Town to offset taxes, was significantly reduced last year, and might face a similar fate in fiscal year 2018-19.

The elementary school budget was defeated at a May 29 referendum in a vote of 127 to 148. Though the spending plan proposed an amount level to the current year, taxpayers at the Annual Town Meeting voiced concern over some of the line items. Among these were the complete elimination of the school’s reading teacher which was previously a full time position.  Taxpayers also objected to a new administrative position, that of Business Manager, claiming that a school Business Coordinator, Principal, Superintendent, Finance Committee, Town Treasurer and Boards of Education and Finance should provide ample oversight for the 2.2 million dollar budget.  Voters also questioned the need for three buses to transport the school’s roughly one hundred students, a debate that has resurfaced for the last several years.

Despite the defeat of the budget and the objections raised over specific items, the Board of Education at its June meeting voted to return the exact same budget to taxpayers without any changes. Some Board of Finance members cautioned against this, saying that historically the town has defeated a budget by an even larger margin when the same one was returned. One member, Kathy Donahue, expressed reluctance to approve the budget when questions she asked at meetings and through a Freedom of Information request, regarding student enrollment, class size, and staff, remain unanswered.

After discussion, the finance board postponed a decision on the budget and set the mil rate at 28.5, the same as this year’s, since the total of all spending plans, the town government and the elementary and high schools, remain flat.  Since schools without approved budgets operate at the previous year’s spending level, which in Hampton’s case was the amount of the proposal, school board members posed no objection.

A Town Meeting will be scheduled some time in the future to seek approval of the elementary school budget once the State sets the MBR.

Dayna McDermott