During the School Boards most recent meeting, School Business Administrator Peter Curro delved into budget matters. As with the previous meeting, Curro noted that the board is cutting it close with the budget, scrubbing the general ledger every fortnight.
Curro predicts that that they will end the fiscal year at around ten to twenty five thousand dollars under budget, but has shown concern over the recent surge of retirements, which involves paying the retirees for vacation days not used, as well as salary and benefits, and the last winter maintenance of the season. As long as there are no more surprises, the budget may still stay on track, albeit barely.
During the meeting, the retirement of Lorraine Arbore was announced by board member Leitha Reilly. Arbore, who spent four decades as an educator and twenty eight of those years in Londonderry, was a Special Education teacher.
She took joy from her profession knowing that she could both help students grow academically and gain confidence in themselves. She also faithfully volunteered for the Special Olympics.
While announcing future board meetings, Chairman Lekas noted a public hearing will be held alongside the usual meeting on May 16 to ratify the election results of the 2017 Annual School District Meeting, which was delayed due to inclement weather. This meeting is being held simply to clarify the legality of the postponements to residents.
After the Student Council report from Carolyn Hill, Nancy Hendricks announced that she had attended her first meeting with the Board of Directors of the New Hampshire School Board Association. She noted that several D.C. representatives were present at the meeting, where concerns over school funding, special education funding and charter schools were raised. Hendricks said that she was willing to testify in Concord over the latter matter.