Despite supportive meeting, Canterubury selectmen criticize Shaker's 'surplus funds' approach

In a tight election race last night, community activist Greta Olson-Wilder narrowly beat out former Belmont High School (BHS) resource officer Richard Bryant, 123-107, for a three-year Belmont seat on the Shaker Regional School Board.

The result, announced shortly before the district’s annual meeting in BHS’s gymnasium was adjourned, was the only competitive one in the district. However Sean Embree, who has been serving several months in the Belmont seat vacated by Bill Hart, won a one-year term to complete the term. Roy Roberts, who is retiring from the Shaker board, easily won election as the district’s new moderator, replacing the retiring Tom Garfield.

The biggest surprises of the evening may have come when a chorus of about 40 people — mostly current elementary school students from Belmont and Canterbury, but some district alumni—– joined together to sing “Like An Eagle,” an inspirational song written by Carl Strommen, dedicated to departing Superintendent Michael Cozort: "Now and farewell, and as we part you taught me well; you gave me strength, you showed the way, I’ll not forget you… Like an eagle I will soar above the clouds."

The audience of about 230 people gave Cozort a hearty round of applause. (There are more than 1,925 registered voters in Belmont and about 470 in Canterbury.)

The board then gave Cozort several small gifts, including a scrapbook of his time at Shaker where he rose from his post as Belmont Elementary School’ principal to become superintendent for the Belmont-Canterbury district. (Cozort has not announced any plans for the future as he prepares to leave this summer but he has expressed interest in becoming involved in an educational setting overseas.)

The school board also recognized departing members Roberts and Hart, as well as several teachers who are leaving the district.

The other surprise came when two members of the Canterbury Board of Selectmen, Bob Steeson and Ken Folsom, rose to ask the board members questions regarding warrant article that are slated to be paid with “unexpended funds” at the end of the school year.

The issue got the board into a bit of trouble last year after residents at the budget hearings and the district meeting expressed disappointment about the practice which has been used in Shaker for some time. Because of the criticism, last year, the board sent all surplus funds back to the towns to offset property tax burdens. But board member Sumner Dole of Canterbury has said recently the measure now meant the district would have to “replace” those surplus monies that have typically paid for several district projects.

The conversation last night began after Dole introduced the board’s proposed $19.5-million operating budget for the 2010-11 school year.

“This year’s budget is an increase of $240,000 over last year’s, or about 1.6-percent increase,” he said. “And most of the increase was related to three things we had no control over: the Collective Bargaining Agreement, or the teachers’ contract; about $223,000 in parting pay for teachers and administrators leaving the district; and our contribution to the NH retirement fund for teachers.” (The Legislature dropped a portion of their contribution to the retiring teachers last year, leaving local districts to pick up the legally obligated slack.)

“We were very mindful of the economy so we kept to a bare bones budget, and we did a lot of cutting,” Dole said. “We did not cut people or programs although there may be a shortage of paperclips, postage, supplies and things like that.

“Later on we’re going to ask you to support a warrant article to put back some of the cuts in Buildings and Grounds, and we have a warrant article that will be addressing the same kind of things with computers,” he concluded. “We’ll try to make that up with surplus funds.”

That’s when Steeson stood up to ask the board about the money being put into four “surplus fund” accounts.

He said that when the board did away with its surplus fund expenditures last year, “It certainly helped out with our December (property) tax bills.” If the board simply returns to using those surplus funds, Canterbury residents could see a 12-percent increase in their property taxes despite the modest budget increase. (Belmont voters are projected to see a jump of about 8-percent in their school tax bills.)

Dole said part of the problem arose out of a clerical error that was made in last year’s budget: “We had to add a zero, which made it $360,000, rather than $36,000.”

The remainder of the surplus funds would come from “a variety of sources,” the school board member said. “With a budget our size you have to have five or six million dollars if for no other reason than to deal with those things that come up that you don’t expect. You can’t cut those items back to zero… There’s always been a surplus of about three-million at the end of the year.”

Steeson persisted, asking if the total surplus fund were currently at zero.

“At the end of the year it has to be zero,” Dole responded. “We can’t bring any money forward (to the next fiscal year.)”

With only a handful of voters in the negative, the budget passed by a near-unanimous vote.

But when the “surplus funds” warrant articles came up, the Canterbury selectmen again expressed their displeasure.

Dole began the discourse when he said the board was able to return “surplus funds” to taxpayers in Belmont and Canterbury last year but that left the district with no funds to work on special and needed projects.

For instance, the first warrant article after the budget vote asked the voters to raise $50,000 in “unexpended surplus funds” for an Energy Fund Expendable Trust Fund that cold be used to pay for unexpected jumps in energy costs.

“We reduced the fuel oil (cost) in the budget by $75,000 and this is a protection,” said Diane O’Hara of Canterbury, chairman of the school board. “It’s a hedge if we have a current fuel oil jump in price. It’s now $1.89 a gallon but it’s projected to be about $3 per gallon (in the fall), so this is a reserve.”

Board member Heidi Hutchinson of Canterbury said the next article would use undesignated reserve fund to help pay for work needed in the school facilities, such as repairs needed in Belmont Elementary School’s bathrooms and in the building’s HVAC ventilation system. “

We did removed $56,000 from the budget,” she said, but the work still needs to be done for “health and safety” issues.

Then board member Pret Tuthill of Belmont discussed an Energy Conservation Upgrades Expendable Trust Fund that would install energy-saving upgrades throughout the district. “This largely comes as the result at last year’s meeting when people were asking us to investigate alternate sources of energy,” he explained. “We thought before we look at alternative energy we ought to do an energy audit.” Once one was completed earlier this year, the board began considering some of its suggestions. “Some of them have paybacks of four months, some have paybacks of 25 years. We’d prioritize on the saving suggestions and start to implement those to reduce energy consumption.”

Steeson rose to voice his objections. “Setting up a reserve fund to see that makes perfectly good sense but maybe the board should hold a public hearing on why these (changes) should be made so we could know,” he said.

Despite the Canterbury selectmen’s objections, all of the “surplus fund” articles passed by a unanimous or near-unanimous vote.

Afterward Steeson and Folsom talked about why they were the only two negative votes on articles that established the Energy Conservation and the School Technology expendable trust funds.

“We were just establishing a trust fund that was expandable and listing the school board as the agents (who can decide what and how much is spent),” Steeson said.

“If it’s a regular trust fund, that’s fine,” he added “It has to come to the voters every year before they spend it.”

“We don’t feel that’s how we should be doing it,” Folsom said of the board’s approach. “That’s why we voted against it.”