Sixty Percent State Aid May Be Possible

Dateline: Dec. 9, 2019

At the November 25th School Board meeting, a special briefing was given by Amy Clark, New Hampshire Dept. of Education (DOE) Administrator of School Safety and Facilities Management. The State had restarted a fund for use by school districts to renovate or rebuild their schools. The current funding had already been allocated but now was the time for the Allenstown School District to apply for future building aid.

The amazing revelation was that Allenstown could be eligible for a grant of 60% of the estimated cost of a school construction project. For example, for a 20 million dollar building project, the school district would have to take out a bond for only 8 million dollars (only $8 million, he says).

Letter of Intent

The first step would be to send the DOE a letter of intent. There was mention of the need for a project design but it was not clear as to how soon that would be necessary. Ms. Clark said it could take up to a year before the application for aid was finally approved. Also, since the state budget was formulated on a biennium (two year) basis, the school district could apply only once every two years, so it seemed like the time to apply was now.

New Building Committee

Following that discussion was a report by Ronnie Cox, chairman of the Allenstown School District Renovation and New Building Committee. That committee was looking at the costs of a new school building vs. the cost of renovating the current schools. They were also looking for land for a new building.

They had contacted four construction companies to get estimates of construction costs for the various options that were detailed in the Harriman Group's Feasibility Study from May 2019. That was the study that gave us an estimated cost of over $44 million to build a new Pre-K to Grade 8 central school.

Joint Tuition Committee

Next, Lindsay Goulet, chair of the Joint Tuition Committee, discussed the current status of a joint venture with Pembroke's Three Rivers Middle School. That committee was looking into transportation costs, the school operatiing budget, tuition agreements in other school districts, and ultimately cost per student. They were still collecting information.

2020-2021 Budget

At about 9 p.m., the meeting, which had started at 6 p.m., now focused on ironing out changes to numerous line items in the new budget. At this point, this writer quietly slipped out of the meeting. In the meeting minutes, it stated that they did not adjourn until 11:18 p.m.

What You Can Do

Attend the next school board meeting on Dec. 9th at AES to see how far they are in the application process. You should also find out when the New Building Committee meets and attend one of their meetings.

Footnote: The Allenstown School District web site contains a Letter of Intent but for some reason it was dated 10/11/19 even though the Nov. 25th meeting seemed to be the first time the topic was discussed in depth.

In addition, there were unanswered questions about what happened to the $484,000 in state aid for this school year and why did the 2019 local school tax rate increase by $1.35/$1,000. The school board was contacted twice but no explanation has been received. The hard to find minutes of the Nov. 25 meeting on the SAU web site did not seem to offer any news about the state aid or the budget increase.