New law requires closure, sale of Danbury Elementary to go before Newfound voters

BRISTOL — As Newfound Area School District faces unexpected financial challenges, its new business administrator is asking the school board to take a longer-term approach to building consolidation.

In preparing the budget proposal for the 2026-27 year, the school board voted to close Danbury Elementary School, while looking into the feasibility of further, future building consolidation. Business Administrator Michael Limanni told the board on Aug. 10 that, before deciding on the disposal of DES, they should consider whether to sell, lease, or maintain it, in case of future needs.

A new state law taking effect in September will make such decisions more difficult. Because the school board did not formally declare the school an “unused facility” by July 1, the new law will require a closure decision to go before the voters.

“This is uncharted territory,” Limanni said, referring to an earlier change in state law requiring school districts disposing of buildings to make a good-faith attempt to negotiate a sale to a charter school.

When the cooperative school district formed, the member towns agreed that, should their local school building no longer be needed, it would be returned to the town. Newfound did so when the district closed the Bridgewater, Alexandria, and Hebron elementary schools. Now, if a charter school is interested in the building, it has the first right to negotiate a purchase.

“You hire people like myself and [Interim Superintendent] Brian [Connelly],” Limanni said. “We represent the district, and we also represent your financial health, so there are options of what you can do with these buildings. You don’t have to sell them at a discount to someone. You don’t necessarily have to give it back to a community, but we understand why that might be an important decision to make. We also know you could lease it out.

“Do you want to bring this building back into the district at some point in time, while still maintaining it and keeping it a viable, healthy building?” he continued. “I think it was a $10.5 million insured building 10 years ago; I haven’t seen an assessment since, but these are, you know, very sturdy, strong buildings. They do cost a lot to maintain, but they will last forever if you do it correctly. And sometimes, just having the right tenant can keep that building going strong, provide possibly a great use for it.”

Limanni prepared a report on the requirements of the new state law, the first of which requires a building to be formally declared an “unused facility” by July 1, if the school district has no plans to use it within the next two years. The school district did not do so, although it vacated the building at the end of June. Some furnishings remain in the building, with plans calling for them to be transferred to other schools, ahead of the start of the semester.

Under existing law, once a building is declared unused, the school board can decide whether to sell or lease the property, and set criteria for prospective tenants or buyers, Limanni said. That information would be reported to the New Hampshire Department of Education.

Limanni recommended the school board “engage an attorney or firm that specializes in the marketing, sale, or lease of commercial properties, like Danbury Elementary School, and solicit interest from businesses, nonprofits, developers, medical providers, daycare operators, municipal users, or other tenants.” The board then could issue a request for proposals.

The evaluation criteria, he said, should include financial strength, proposed use, community benefit, compatibility with the surrounding area, tenant experience, and ability to maintain the premises.

“Once the district has an acceptance offer, it must notify the state’s charter school administrator,” starting the clock on a 60-day notice period to allow a charter school to enter negotiations. If the two sides cannot reach an agreement, the law provides an appraisal and mediation process to establish a fair-market price.

Should there be no interest by a charter school, the school district would be free to proceed with a private business transaction, Limanni said.

“A lot of people rush into this, but there are professional organizations that will market this, and look at the best uses for it,” Limanni said. “I’m not speaking for you; I’m just saying these are probably the most viable options of what to do with the building.”

Dana Torsey, school board member from New Hampton, raised the question, “When we’ve given the schools away, we’ve had the voters vote on it. So if we, the board, want to give it away and put out there, the four towns might say no. If we don’t do that, if we do this whole lease thing, do the towns get to vote on what we do?

"Would that be something going on a ballot, or is that just something we can do?”

“The district can do a one-year lease without it being on the ballot. Anything longer than a one-year lease has to go to a vote of the taxpayers,” Chair Melissa Suckling responded.

Former board member Francine Wendelboe, of New Hampton, argued, “I think it’s totally ironic that we’re talking about becoming landlords and leasing Danbury, maybe forever, to somebody else, when all of a sudden, when we were looking at buying the bank building, the public seemed to say, ‘Oh no, the school district has no business being a landlord,’ and now, here we are. The precedent is that the schools were given back to the towns who gave them to the SAU when we were formed, and that building should be given back to Danbury to do whatever they damn well please with it. And if a charter school is going to happen, then they can work with the charter school, but we shouldn’t be getting involved with it at all whatsoever. It should follow precedent, and go back to the town.”

Audrey Pellegrino, of Danbury, who spearheaded the formation of a charter school hoping to take over the building, spoke of Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s recent signing of House Bill 1374. In addition to modifying the procedure for the withdrawal of a town from a cooperative school district to allow a majority of voters in a single town to decide whether to withdraw, it also requires a majority of voters served by a school or district to vote on the question of discontinuing an elementary or high school.

“It also states that, if a school district closes a school in a town, then they must give it to the town, if they want to buy it as a school. So, just keep that in mind,” Pellegrino said.

The law's language states: “If a majority of voters residing in all municipalities that are served by a school or district vote in the affirmative for the discontinuance of such elementary or high school pursuant to RSA 194:3-f, the municipality in which the elementary or high school is located shall be permitted to continue the operation of the school in accordance with this section.”

Because the school board did not formally declare the school “unused” by July 1, Pellegrino argued the new law, which takes effect in September, requires closure to go before voters. And if the district does give it up, Danbury has a right to operate it as a charter school.

The question of further building consolidation hit a roadblock after voters in March defeated the proposed budget. The default budget the district now works under has left teachers without contracts, and administrators have been working to determine what benefits it can provide in a new contract.

In light of those problems, the school board voted to suspend the work by Banwell Architects associated with the consolidation, while allowing internal data collection to continue. Banwell has been assessing building proposals for the district over the last few years, and most recently has been looking at the possibility of consolidating all classes into the current middle and high schools. Staff planned to share a first draft of its consolidation plan at the Aug. 10 meeting, before being dropped from the agenda.