Hooksett residents boosted the proposed school district budget by nearly $345,000, though some worry the change could jeopardize a new contract proposed for teachers this year.

About 100 people came out to Cawley Middle School for the deliberative session of the School District Meeting – which was the last chance annual school proposals could be modified before next month’s townwide vote – on Friday, Feb. 9.

Hooksett parent Ray Miclette introduced the motion to increase the district’s proposed operating budget to $23,533,641, up from $23,189,176, a number school officials have said could mean cuts to education programs including Read 180, and the English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL program.

More than two-thirds of those in attendance supported the increase.

The original budget number was supported by the budget committee, which told the school board the budget cuts were needed in order for the influential panel to put its stamp on a new teacher contract that would add nearly $1.2 million in expenses to the district over the next three years.

All sides agreed Hooksett’s teachers are underpaid compared to teachers in similar districts. Voters rejected a new contract for teachers last year. Budget committee members said they wanted to keep the budget down to make clear that the year’s priority was the teacher’s contract.

“It’s tough, it’s restricted, but we think it’s viable,” budget committee Chairman Gerald Kearney said of his group’s budget proposal, which was about $300,000 less than the proposed default budget.

“We wanted to give a signal that the teachers contract was the most important thing,” he said.

Kearney and other budget committee members said they’ve been focused on overall spending both from the school district and the town. Kearney said if all the school board’s original proposals – including contracts for teachers and support staff – passed this year, the result would be a one-year spending increase of $1.7 million, which former Hooksett Finance Department Director Diane Savoie estimated would have caused a $1.26 spike in the tax rate per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

The budget committee’s recommendations on each of the school district’s money proposals will be listed next to the school board’s on next month’s ballot. Following the School District Meeting, the budget committee unanimously reversed its decision to support the operating budget. The committee can’t alter its official recommendation of the teacher contract.

Several residents said they worried the boost in the budget could negate the weeks of productive budget wrangling between the budget committee and the school board, and could dissuade voters from approving the teachers contract. Other residents questioned why the two separate proposals – the operating budget and the contract – now seem tied together.

Resident Alex Wilson said the budget committee seemed to be using its recommendations as a tool for “blackmail.”

SAU withdrawal

Residents didn’t make any changes to a request to continue the work of a committee studying the potential effects of Hooksett’s withdrawal from SAU 15, the administrative branch the district now shares with Auburn and Candia.

The committee was formed after a citizen’s petition passed last year, but twice was told by the state Board of Education that its withdrawal study didn’t fully consider the impacts Hooksett’s withdrawal would have on the two smaller districts.

The withdrawal question has divided the school board, and school board member Jim Sullivan has said the board’s decision to put the “continuation” question to voters this year gives the impression that the school board favors the withdrawal. Voting on all school proposals and elections is Tuesday, March 13, at Cawley Middle School.