Hooksett Budget Committee members are willing to support a new contract for teachers if the school board members agree to support a $459,000 cut in their proposed operating budget.

The committee recommended the proposals – which will appear as warrant articles at the upcoming annual School District Meeting – during a meeting on Monday, Jan. 15, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in the hallway of the upper level of the town hall.

The budget committee was preparing its recommendations for a continuation of a recent public hearing in which scores of teachers turned out to lobby for the committee’s support of a new contract.

Voters soundly rejected a contract for teachers last year, and several people said another year with stagnant pay would drive more good teachers out of the district, and make recruiting good new teachers nearly impossible.

Several people took offense to a budget committee letter, which opposed last year’s proposed contract, mailed to residents and printed in The Hooksett Banner just before the 2006 vote.

Committee members were given hard data showing that Hooksett teacher salaries – most often for younger teachers – are significantly lower than salaries in similar districts statewide. School board member Ron Dion said many younger Hooksett teachers can go to a nearby district and immediately get an $8,000 to $10,000 pay raise.

“They’d almost be crazy not to,” said Dion.

University of New Hampshire, Manchester, employee Cara Procek said she works with aspiring teachers at the university, and said many of those students have great experiences through training programs at Hooksett’s schools.

But after they graduate, said Procek, “None of them want to work here.”

“Hooksett is not competitive with surrounding towns,” she said. “That’s always been a problem.”

The current contract proposal would cost the district about $400,000 in each of the next three years. The contract would also mean teachers pick up a higher percentage of insurance premiums. That would save the district a minimum of about $130,000 in the 2007-08 budget year, said SAU 15 Business Administrator Karen Lessard.

At the public hearing, which packed the media room of Hooksett Memorial School on Thursday, Jan. 11, budget committee Chairman Gerald Kearney suggested the combined cost increases proposed in the operating budget and the teachers’ contract combined were excessive.

“To me the people who negotiated for the teachers and the school board are putting the teachers at high risk,” said Kearney. “If I were a classroom teacher, I would be annoyed.”

At the Jan. 15 meeting, a majority of the budget committee voted to support the contract, but also support an operating budget of $23,189,176, which is nearly $460,000 less than the budget put forward by the school board.

The budget committee’s proposed budget is now some $300,000 less than the school district’s proposed default budget, and marks a 2 percent increase over the district’s current budget.

“We want to make the teachers the priority, and we’re saying ‘Everybody else, tighten your belts,’” Kearney said. Kearney said its recommendations would require some “good faith” between the committee and the school board, which had four members at the meeting.

“If we do this, we really need the concurrence of the school district and the school board,” Kearney said.

School Board Chairman Joanne McHugh said she couldn’t okay the apparent deal unless the board were officially to meet first. A continuation of the public hearing for the school district budget and warrant articles is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 18.