By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

With only a handful of warrant articles up for discussion at the recent deliberative session of the Epsom School District Meeting, a good portion of the conversation centered around the lack of a warrant article addressing the Epsom Central School building.

In a little more than an hour, voters at the Tuesday, Feb. 7, deliberative session at Epsom Central School approved each of the year’s warrant articles to appear on the March 14 ballot as written.

Proposed this year is a $7.1 million operating budget, new salary agreements for teachers and support staff and the cost of two buses for Epsom’s Pembroke Academy students.

If all the warrant articles are approved, officials estimate a $1.67 increase in the tax rate. Under that scenario, the owner of a $250,000 home would pay an additional $417 in taxes.

School improvements
Officials chose not to propose any large-scale improvements to Epsom Central School, though a new boiler and panic doors were built into the proposed operating budget.

Voters last year rejected a $6.7 million plan that would have renovated portions of the building and added eight classrooms.

Don Harty, of the building committee, presented recent research from both the New Hampshire School Board Association and the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority suggesting that Epsom’s elementary school population is on the decline.

Harty said last year’s $6.7 million proposal followed research suggesting the school population would increase along with new housing permits.

But Harty said a “red flag” went up in September, as enrollment at Epsom’s only school was down 30 to 35 children from the previous year. The research suggested that many of the housing permits were going to “baby boomers,” a group no longer producing children, Harty said.

“We just did not feel, with the numbers that we have, that eight new classrooms were justified,” Harty said of pulling the project.

Harty noted that the majority of last year’s plan surrounded improvements to the school rather than new construction, and said many needs – like heating, air flow, asbestos removal and lighting – still exist.

“The inadequacies in the school have not changed,” he said.

Warrant articles
School officials are hoping voters will buck the recent trend toward frugality when it comes to the operating budget. Voters have left the district with a default budget in two of the last three years.

When asked by a resident if the school board took extraordinary care to keep the budget well-trimmed this year, board chairman Andrew Turnbull replied, “Those extraordinary lengths have, unfortunately, become ordinary.”

“Every year that is front and center in our concerns,” Turnbull said.

Proposed increases in the budget include higher tuition costs for Pembroke Academy students, a $60,000 boiler, higher out-of-district costs for some special education students and higher bus costs.

School officials estimate that the proposed budget, if approved, would cause a $1.21 spike in the tax rate if approved on March 14. The default budget would cause a 62-cent jump in the tax rate, officials estimate.

School officials are also asking for approval of contract agreements with the Epsom Teacher’s Association and the Epsom Support Staff Association.

The first year of the threeyear agreements would mark a 4.85 percent increase in teacher salaries and a 5.15 percent increase in salaries for support staff.

Officials are also asking voters to approve $65,070 for two buses to transport Epsom’s Pembroke Academy students.

The PA bus was cut from the 2005-06 default budget, and officials said enrollment increases at the high school have necessitated a second bus.

Currently, Epsom’s high school students pay about $80 a month each just to ride the bus, said Turnbull.

Low turnout
The majority of the folding chairs set up in the ECS gymnasium were left unfilled, and only a few residents made their voices heard at the deliberative session.

Turnbull, for one, would have liked more participation from the public, and suggested the lack of involvement was perhaps due to the SB2 system.

“Having a discussion is really what’s important,” he said. “When you get up there and take questions that maybe you didn’t expect, then you start to get into more detail.”

Election day is Tuesday, March 14, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the American Legion hall.