The following are the warrant articles that the Andover School District Meeting 2013 will vote on. Background information is provided, where appropriate, in square brackets [].
School District Meeting starts at 7 PM on Monday, March 4, in the Andover Elementary/Middle School gym.
Article 1: To see if the District will vote to accept the reports of Officials, Agents, Auditors, and/or Committees as printed in the School District report.
Article 2: To see if the District will vote to authorize the School Board to make application for, to accept and expend on behalf of the District any and all advances, grants, or other funds for educational purposes which may now or hereinafter be forthcoming from the United States of America and its agencies or from the State of New Hampshire and its agencies.
[This article must appear every year to authorize the School Board to accept and spend the state and federal aid it anticipates being available in a given year.]
Article 3: To see if the District will authorize the School Board to accept and expend on behalf of the District private gifts and contributions for educational purposes.
[This article must appear every year to authorize the School Board to accept and spend private donations in a given year.]
Article 4: To see if the School District will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Four Million, Four Hundred Forty-Eight Thousand, Three Hundred Eighty-Six Dollars ($4,448,386) for the support of schools, for the payment of salaries of school district officers and agents, and for the payment of statutory obligations of said district, and to authorize the application against said appropriation of such sums that are estimated to be raised from the state’s equalization payment, together with other income. The School Board shall certify to the selectmen of Andover the amount to be raised by taxation of said town.
The Budget Committee recommends passing this article. The School Board recommends passing a budget in the amount of Four Million, Five Hundred Fifteen Thousand, Three Hundred Eighty-Six Dollars ($4,515,386).
[This article raises the money to run the district and is worded according to regulations set forth by the Department of Revenue. The amounts mentioned do not include any of the amounts mentioned in any of the other warrant articles. The amounts of all the warrant articles that pass get added together to determine the final 2013 School District budget.]
[The Budget Committee and the School Board each recommend a different budget. See 2013 Budgets Set For Annual Meetings and the complete School District budget on page 69 of the Andover Town Report 2012 for details.]
Article 5: To see if the School District will approve the cost items included in the collective bargaining agreement reached between the Andover School Board and the Andover Education Association, which calls for the following estimated increases in salaries and benefits:
- 2013-2014 $36,142
- 2014-2015 $29,657
- 2015-2016 $30,027
And further, to raise and appropriate the sum of $36,142 for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, such sum representing the additional costs attributable to the increase in salaries and benefits required by the new agreement over those that would be paid at current staffing levels.
The School Board recommends passing this article.
[Once School District Meeting approves a collective bargaining agreement, future budget-year amounts will appear in each future year’s budget.]
[This budget-year’s amount, however, couldn’t be included in this year’s budget because School District Meeting hadn’t approved the agreement yet. So this warrant article asks the meeting to both approve the agreement and raise and appropriate the amount stipulated for this budget year.]
[The Budget Committee didn’t vote on whether to recommend or not recommend this article.]
Article 6: To see if the School District will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Sixty-Four Thousand, Four Hundred Twenty-Eight Dollars ($64,428) to fund a full-day kindergarten program. The Budget Committee does not recommend passing this article. The School Board recommends passing this article.
[See Full-Day Kindergarten for more information.]
Article 7: To transact any other business that may legally come before this meeting.