The Weare School Board is heading back to voters with a revised 2008-09 proposed school budget that would add about $240,000 to the default budget currently in place after the March 11 elections.

At their meeting Monday, March 24, the board voted to hold a special election for the newly proposed $12.7 million school budget on Tuesday, June 3.

Voters bypassed the district’s $12.9 million proposed budget at the polls in a 806-to-731 vote.

Under the $12.4 million default, about $465,000 less than what the district proposed, as many as seven teaching positions plus custodial staff and weekend custodial coverage could be struck from the budget.

The board is also considering adopting a “pay to play” policy if the default holds, which would charge students involved in sports, theater, after-school programs and other co-curricular activities.

The default budget would have increased taxes by 25 cents per $1,000 of assessed value from last year. For a home assessed at $200,000, that represents a $50 increase on the tax bill.

The new proposal would be an increase in the tax rate of 52 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, or a $104 increase on the tax bill of a home assessed at $200,000.

The staff cuts would first occur by not filling positions that open up at the end of the year, including one middle school teacher who has already announced her retirement, said School Board Chairman Matt Thomas, but added the district may have to resort to layoffs. All teachers in the district will get the state-required notification of the possible staff cuts in April.

If the new budget passes with voters, the district would be able to reinstate one custo$47,600 and several teacher salaries amounting to $157,400 back into the budget, said School District Business Administrator Jim Crane.

The School Board will still need to cut a math specialist they planned on hiring to bring Weare schools out of a “district in need of improvement” designation in terms of state adequacy testing, Thomas said, even under the $12.7 million budget.

Also, teaching positions may still have to be cut if positions are not left vacant at the end of the year.

“We clearly want to try and retain the staff members that we have,” said Thomas.

The additional $240,000 would further allow the formation of an additional first-grade class at Center Woods Elementary School.

Thomas said the enrollment numbers for first grade bubbled this year, and said one school official reported a first-grade classroom with more than 25 students in it.

That extra class, which was funded in the School Board’s original proposed budget, would be scrapped under the default. There would also be changes in the busing of Weare students to John Stark Regional High School under the default and the newly proposed budget. Out of two buses that would be eliminated under the default budget, one would be funded in the budget.

The board is currently talking about eliminating transportation for students who live within 2 miles of the school.

They are also talking about ways to re-configure the bus routes to save time and money, one idea being to pick up Weare students going to John Stark at a centralized location in town, Thomas said.

“That’s the only area we see where we have any flexibility,” Thomas said.

Part of the problem, he added, is the amount of state revenue that comes in to the Weare School District in comparison to larger school districts.

Crane said about a third of the school district’s budget is funded through state adequacy aid, and the other two-thirds are raised through local taxes, a significantly unbalanced ratio compared with other towns.

The Weare school district also spends the least per pupil in the state, according to 2005-06 data, Crane said.

The state average for perpupil spending is $10,108. Weare spends $3,354 less than that per student, a total of $6,754 , according to Crane.

“Some people say that shows good management, but I think really what you’re talking about is higher student-teacher ratios,” Crane said.

Thomas said rising special education costs have also set the district back.

“We try to keep all the kids in the district, but we can’t always do that,” Thomas said, adding the district is attempting to get those costs, including out-of-district placement, back in line.