BY RYAN O’CONNOR
Last year, the annual Bow School District Meeting took place in the high school gymnasium to accommodate a large crowd of residents gathered to voice their opinions on several large money articles.
With only one such article, aside from the general operating budget, on this year’s warrant, the School District Meeting was moved to the high school auditorium, where only 78 registered voters, including district officials and faculty, attended.
Gone were requests for a new teacher’s contract and extensive renovations to Bow Memorial School. This year, the only articles that had a direct impact on taxes were Article 3, the district operating budget, and Article 4, which asked residents to approve the lease agreement on one new full-size school bus.
There was little debate on either article.
The operating budget, $24,086,626, which presented a 5.38 percent increase over last year’s approved budget of $22,133,932, passed almost unanimously.
“This year, our budget figures were pretty straightforward,” said school board member Pansy Bloomfield. “We did our best this year to hold our budget increase to only 5.38 percent over last year, and part of this is because we were pretty much bound into increases in salaries and benefits.”
The school bus article, said Vice Chairman Deb McCann, is less than in most years because the district proposed only one bus on the 2007 warrant, when usually it requests two.
She explained that the district, after purchasing three buses last year, chose to save the town the additional cost on another bus this year.
She also said newer model buses save on fuel and maintenance costs as opposed to those being replaced.
Selectman Eric Anderson asked the board why it chose to lease buses rather than purchase them, when, according to his numbers, it would save the district money to buy them outright.
School district business administrator Duane Ford said, rather than adding additional funds into the operating budget, which would increase the budget substantially each year, the district would lease buses based on need.
”One of the things we look at every year is how to get the operating budget passed,” said Ford. “The other thing to consider is lease payments fall off every five years, so we’re not paying leases on an entire fleet each year.”
Residents also approved a new 20-year vocational agreement with the Concord School District, which calls for the state to pay 75 percent of the costs and the Bow School District to pay the remaining quarter.
“I absolutely support this and I wonder why we only have 35 kids who are interested in being in this program,” said resident Tom King. “Not everybody goes to college and not everyone should go to college. There ought to be an alternative for students.”
School board Chairman Warren Fargo explained that, for various reasons, based primarily on space issues because eight schools are sending students to the program, not all students can be accepted.
Other articles approved included options to raise and transfer $100,000 from year-end surplus for unanticipated special education costs $90,000 for the high capital reserve fund and $40,000 for paving.
All three articles passed without opposition.
In addition, the district rescinded a $240,000 bond for a geothermal heating system at the middle school, which was passed at 2003 School District Meeting, but never sold.
The reason, said Bloomfield, is because the district was unable to obtain grant assistance for the system, so, never followed through with the plan because it wasn’t financially feasible for the district.