By Ryan O'Connor
Staff Writer

New Boston School District Meeting is Wednesday, Feb. 8, 7 p.m., at New Boston Central School.

The New Boston School District was faced with many obstacles in creating its 2006 warrant, including trying to balance a budget deficit this year while trying to avoid the same predicament next year.

Ray Labore, business manager for School Administrative Unit 19, which includes Dunbarton, Goffstown and New Boston, said it is difficult to budget now for a school year that runs from July 1, 2006 to June 30, 2007.

“What we are trying to do is determine what the costs are going to be 18 months from now,” he said. “We are also talking about the growth rate of the surrounding communities and the difficulty of trying to determine the amount of students that will be coming into the system.”

Labore added, “We are trying to develop a formula that is as reasonable as possible so as to not negatively impact tax rates.”

Some of the issues that have created this year's deficit, said Labore, include unplanned increases in special education expenses, specifically out-of-district placements, increases in oil and propane heating costs and higher diesel fuel prices.

In addition, New Boston was forced to shoulder the added tuition costs of sending 13 unanticipated students to Goffstown High School and a number of others to Mountain View Middle School.

As a result, Article 3 requests $198,500 as a deficit appropriation to make up for the loss.

“It's something we never want to do,” said Marti Wolf, school board chairman. “We work extremely hard to put together a fair and accurate budget, and we hate to go to the town and ask for additional money.”

Wolf said it is impossible to project special-needs costs on a year-to-year basis and agreed with Labore on the difficulty of determining the number of new students who will be moving into the district.

“We budget exactly what we need every year and it hasn't been a bad plan,” she said. “This is the first year in some time that we needed additional financing. We just were hit with more unknowns this year than an average year.”

The total proposed operating budget for the upcoming school year is $9,402,283, a slight increase over last year's budget of $9,371,161.

Also on the warrant is the collective bargaining agreement for the New Boston Support Staff Association. The association represents all non-teacher employees, including custodians, office assistants and food service personnel.

Under the collective bargaining agreement, there will be increases in salaries and benefits over the next three years at costs of $55,436 for the 2006-07 school year, $34,989 for 2007-08, and $37,067 for 2008-09.

“We've taken a look at the compensation at comparable districts and our folks were very low on the pay scale, so we wanted to bring them closer to the line,” said Wolf. “We like to reward our employees for their hard work and, if we don't reward them, they go somewhere else.”

The deliberative session of School District Meeting will take place at New Boston Central School on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m.