School Board to vote on FY2025 budget

posted on 1/15/2024

The School Board is set to adopt its fiscal year 2025 budget at a 7 p.m. special meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan. 16. The School Board’s budget will then be incorporated into the city-wide budget introduced to the City Council next month.

On Jan. 8, the School Board held its final budget workshop where the group informally agreed to forgo $670,000 transfers into its capital reserve funds to reduce the local property tax burden. Coming into the budget workshop, the School Board’s working budget totaled $85,507,439 in estimated revenue and expenditures, proposing that $58,022,509 be raised by local property taxes, a $6,263,209, or a 12.1% increase over the adopted FY2024 adjusted budget. That put the School Board’s budget an estimated $2,962,549 above the education side of the city’s tax cap calculation. The reduction of $670,000 of capital reserve transfer and other adjustments brought the amount above the estimated tax cap to just under $2.3 million.

The new budget does not add any new positions, and Superintendent William Harbron and Business Michael Administrator Limanni have explained the request for additional money above the tax cap is to maintain current services due to the significant loss in state education funding, including a reduction of $2,254,464 in state adequacy education aid and a $183,412 reduction in the statewide education tax. There is also a significant increase in the estimated legally required special education costs. The FY2025 budget’s estimated special education cost increase is $2,569,369, which includes $1,123,000 in legally required special education transportation costs.

The proposed budget also includes an increase of $1,518,309 in wages and benefits from the three union contracts approved by the School Board and City Council this year, affecting the Dover Teachers Union, Dover Paraeducators, and the Dover Educational Office Personnel unions.

“All we’re asking for this year is the status quo to keep what we’re doing and not take away any more positions,” said School Board Chair Robin Trefethen at the School Board’s Jan. 8 workshop.

The meeting will be televised on Channel 22 and online at https://dovernh.viebit.com, where it will also be available for on-demand viewing. Previous budget workshops and associated documents are posted on the FY2025 Budget Revealed webpage.