Candia Budget Committee members and school officials sparred as the committee recommended a $7.31 million budget that some say cuts too close to the bone, possibly eliminating field trips and Minds in Motion.

“As a taxpayer and resident, I’d have to say that I don’t think this budget gives the children the same quality they have now,” said Kristine Pouliot, a member of both the Budget Committee and the Candia Parent-Teacher Organization.

Residents who attended a Jan. 8 meeting said about 40 people were at that night’s hearing on the proposed 2009-10 school budget, which now totals $7,313,239. Budget Committee Chairman Carla Penfield said some $40,000 was added that night to boost the lean budget, which is still more than $100,000 less than the current budget of $7,435,739.

“Nobody at the meeting liked the cuts,” Penfield said. Penfield said on Jan. 9 that the ongoing economic downturn weighed heavy on the minds of some committee members as they assembled the budget over the past few months, and as such they aimed for a budget that is as close to level-funded as possible.

“We’re concerned about the town’s ability to pay,” she said. “We have significantly reduced revenues right now ... and we saw a tax revenue increase in 2008 of between $700 to $1,000 per household. Even with this budget, we’ll still see a tax increase because we have decreasing revenues.”

According to the final budget figures, Penfield said revenues dropped about $100,000 from last year. In the final tally, Penfield said the proposed budget does not have any negative effects on educational quality, but she acknowledged that some of the committee’s recommendations have provoked an unpopular reaction from parents.

Namely, she said one recommendation for the coming year holds that field trips should be entirely family-funded, and she also said the committee should reduce the “Minds in Motion” program at the Henry Moore Elementary School for one year. Led by math teacher Judi Lindsey, the class offers an extra academic challenge in math subjects for students in third through fifth grade.

Penfield said that it’s “an expensive program” that involves relatively few students -- there’s only 17 in the program now, she said -- at a cost of about $80,000. Penfield said the leaner-than-usual budget and recommended cuts are part of an overall a stop-gap measure to trim costs for 2009-10 only.

But Pouliot said she’d rather have seen the School Administrative Unit 15 recommended budget of $7.55 million be put forward for next year. Ultimately, the School Board’s recommended budget came to $7,490,473, making the committee’s budget the lowest of the three budgets for next year.

“The Budget Committee put a lot of time and effort into this, but standing back and looking at this as a citizen of Candia, I think we owe our children more,” she said.