$19.5 Million School Construction Grant Approved

Dateline: July 16, 2021

The town has been waiting since March 2021 to learn about the school district's application for a school construction grant. If you recall, during the end of 2020 and the start of 2021, hearings were held at which we were asked to approve construction of a new K-8 school. Renovation and expansion of either the ARD or AES school was deemed to be cost prohibitive.

Artist Drawing of New School at River Rd. and Dodge Rd.

Back in March the new school had an estimated cost of $32.5 million with $19.5 million to come from an NH Dept. of Education construction grant, leaving $13 million for the taxpayers to fund. That $13 million would be paid with a 20-year municipal bond which would increase the school tax rate by an estimated $2.77/$1,000 for years 2-20. The school board needs to inform us ASAP about the bond rate they obtain and its effect on the school tax rate.

On July 12, Allenstown-Alt received the following announcement from Allenstown School District Principal Shannon Kruger.

Hello All,

It's time to get EXCITED for the children, staff, and community of Allenstown!

Amy Clark from the NHDOE forwarded the following message to Mr. Peter Warburton, Superintendent of Schools.

"I'd like to congratulate you, your district, and your community for being eligible to receive school building aid for your proposed consolidation construction project! As you are aware, the Governor signed the State budget with $30 million for new projects, which is enough to cover your full building aid award which is 60% of the eligible costs, not to exceed $19,499,736".

There is a lot to do before we can break ground in the spring, but know that the work has already begun. We anticipate completing the project in time to start the 2023 school year in the new building.

Best,

Shannon Kruger, ASD Principal

What You Can Do

Contact members of the Allenstown School Board and remind them that ALL THE RESIDENTS are paying school taxes in support of the school district and ALL OF THEM need to be informed of this significant development, not just the parents with school children.

Additional aspects need to be addressed. For example, will busing costs in the school budget increase because all the downtown school children will need to ride a bus? Will the town need to repave River Rd. because of the additional traffic? Will the town need to divert school traffic to Harness Horse Rd. to minimize excess traffic along River Rd.? Will the State DOT need to build a turning lane at Harness Horse Rd.?

Allenstown-Alt has limited exposure, so more work needs to be done to develop mechanisms by which ALL THE RESIDENTS are kept informed of issues which affect their school taxes, their school-age children, and town taxes.

One successful method that the town government has used to keep residents informed of the town budget process each year has been to publish and update an online budget schedule of events and milestones. The School Board would do residents a big favor if they would develop a similar schedule focused on milestones and events during the construction of the new school. This would show residents that the school district cared enough to keep them informed of progress with the whole construction process. The schedule would also need to be easily located from the school board's home web page.

Instead of creating a word processing table and exporting it to PDF, the schedule could be an interactive web table like this. The Details buttons could store a lot of information but remain hidden until the button was clicked.

Milestones and Events for the New Allenstown School