Amherst: Operating budget will go on warrant as proposed
AMHERST – A brief debate over cost of living raises for nonunion and support staff and a short discussion on the funding formula for the state retirement system were the high points of a quiet Amherst School District Deliberative Session on Thursday night.
With the proposed fiscal 2011 operating budget the lone article on the warrant, the session went just over an hour. None of the roughly 50 people in attendance proposed to amend the article.
The proposed $23.37 million budget is an increase of roughly $156,000, or 0.67 percent, over this year’s budget. It goes on the warrant for consideration by voters at the March 9 elections.
Voters will also elect candidates for open seats, which this year include two three-year terms on the Amherst School Board and a one-year term for school district clerk.
Should the proposed budget pass, it would mean roughly a 10 cent increase to the school portion of residential property tax bills in Mont Vernon and slightly less for those in Amherst.
It equates to a nearly $30 increase on the tax bill for a $300,000 home in Mont Vernon and slightly less than that for a similarly assessed Amherst home.
If voters reject the budget, the district will operate on the $23.01 million default budget, which is roughly $364,000 less than the proposed budget.
On Thursday, resident Joe Esposito took issue with the School Board’s decision to approve raises of 2 percent to 3 percent for nonunion district employees.
“How can you justify giving a raise to people not under a contract at a time when nobody is getting a Social Security raise and (few) in the private sector are getting raises?” Esposito asked.
Board Chairwoman Nancy Head said the decision to do so was a difficult one.
“In the end, we felt it was justified,” Head said.
Board members pointed to the significant leap in health care costs, which comes to around 23 percent more for medical and 6 percent for dental, as drivers of the proposed budget increase.
Head also described the state-mandated 15 percent increase in the district’s contribution to the state retirement system, which administers teachers’ retirement funds, as a cause of the increase.
Amherst is among the many school districts facing substantial increases in mandated contributions to the system, an issue that drew teacher and union activist Sam Giarrusso, who is also a retirement system trustee, to the microphone.
Giarrusso blamed the recent spike in mandated contributions on years of underfunding by state employers, which he said resulted from several legislative changes to the funding formula.
“In 1991, legislators changed the way employer contributions are figured,” Giarrusso said.
“Employees have been paying 5 percent (into the system) for 41 years,” he said, adding that employers’ contributions were less than they should have been.
Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 31 or dshalhoup@nashua telegraph.com.
