Dover residents urge school budget restraint

DOVER — Several city residents urged the School Board not to go over the allowable city tax cap with its fiscal year 2021 budget.

Resident Jo Jordan pointed to the added positions included in the initial FY 2021 budget proposal presented to the School Board in December by Superintendent William Harbron.

"Of concern for the residents is the request for such an expansion on the school budget, particularly for administrators, paid administrators, which isn’t really for the students so much as yet more overhead," Jordan said during Tuesday night’s School Board meeting.

Proposed new positions include a $130,000 assistant director of teaching and learning, a $130,000 dean of instruction for Dover’s Middle School, an $85,000 elementary instructional coach and an $85,000 middle school instructional coach.

Jordan told the School Board the majority of people in her community "are on fixed incomes and have been dealing with some significant issues year over year over year.

"We saw a 30 percent increase in the values of our mobile homes one year … so we are very, very highly impacted by changes," Jordan said. "I ask the School Board, you’ve got a budget, please try to stay within it one year, one year would be nice."

City resident Joseph Merullo said he attended Tuesday’s School Board meeting "as a concerned taxpayer looking at the potential of possibly a fifth year of a tax cap override."

While he understands the School Board is at the beginning of the budget process, he challenged board members to "represent all the taxpayers of the city and not just special interests."

"I really feel like you have a moral obligation to hear the voice of the taxpayers. It’s fine to support the schools and to support the students, and I certainly do as well, but we can’t sustain this year after year of the override of the tax cap," he said.

Merullo noted residents are dealing with the tax cap overrides at the same time property assessment are rising substantially.

"That’s like getting hit with a double whammy," he said.

He said the budget comes in as a "pie-in-the-sky proposal … and then we cut it down and then we pat ourselves on the back. But the fact of the matter is we’re overriding the tax cap every year."

The school’s fiscal year 2020 total general fund budget is $64,800,207, and the draft FY2021 total general fund budget that was presented to the School Board in December is $67,796,496, according to Libby Simmons, the business administrator for the Dover School District.

The draft FY2021 as presented in December was $2,030,352 over the estimated allowable city tax cap and represents a 4.62% increase over FY2020, Simmons said.

However, the School Board passed a resolution on Tuesday to move $379,097 in grant money to use for salaries and wages into two of the school district’s capital reserve funds.

That transfer means the proposed school district budget as it stands now would be about $1.6 million over the allowable city tax cap, Simmons said Tuesday.

So the proposed FY 2021 budget to date is $67,445,555, which is an approximately $2.6 million or 4.08 percent increase over the current budget, Simmons said.

The city’s tax cap establishes a maximum increase allowed in the property tax levy for the budget adopted by a majority vote of City Council, according to City Manager Michael Joyal.

That increase is calculated based upon the most recent three-year average of the CPI-u (Consumer Price Index for urban consumers) applied to the city and local school portions of the tax levy, Joyal said.

The cap may only be exceeded if the budget is adopted by a two-thirds vote of the City Council.

Lisa Dillingham, president of the Dover Teachers' Union, encouraged residents "to really listen and hear what is being proposed between tonight and next week."

She also stressed "these are just proposals. Nothing that is being presented tonight is final."

Resident Steven Esler asked board members to "be mindful of the budget and the tax cap because taxes are going up and, unfortunately, they're going up higher than incomes."

"Eventually it’s going to be very difficult to meet your household budget," he said. "Please stay within budget and stay within the tax cap."

Simmons pointed to a list of "budget drivers on the expense side," including what is estimated to be a $1.6 million increase in the budget because of the teachers' contract, which is in its second year.

In addition, the cost of paying for health insurance and dental care is estimated to be increasing by $510,000, Simmons said.

The cost of special education tuition and transportation is also projected to increase by about $679,000 in the FY 2021 school budget, she said.

School Board Chair Amanda Russell pointed out the tax cap "applies to the city of Dover, not to the school and every other department individually. Budgets are allowed to increase and decrease across the city, so this application and the way we’ve applied the tax cap since it was enacted has pitted schools against every department."