Board of Aldermen Page 4
May 24, 2016
PERIOD FOR PUBLIC COMMENT RELATIVE TO ITEMS EXPECTED TO BE ACTED
UPON THIS EVENING
Mr. Fred Teeboom, 24 Cheyene Drive
Mayor Donchess, thank you very much for your kind comments. I’m not sure any of you attended the
commemoration last Sunday but | invite you all to go to the memorial and take a look at the latest
sculpture, it’s very impressive.
O0-016-011 — Reducing the Taxation for Certain Chartered Public Schools. One of the truly most
incorrect and inappropriate statements that | ever heard made before the Board of Aldermen was made
on May 10" and | refer to the minutes on page 12, referring to the charter schools Alderman Clemons
said “I think that they syphon money off of the district for the benefit of the few and then the rest of the
population is left behind.” The Academy for Science and Design is a top scoring school on NECAP in
New Hampshire and it is rated the 50" best school in the entire United States by Newsweek Magazine.
Let’s look at the figures. The average cost for students in the public schools K-12 in Nashua is $13,000
per student. The cost per teacher is almost $89,000 per teacher. There are 1,005 teachers in Nashua
for 11,500 students in K-12 and that’s from the Board of Education data. This means that there is a load
of $11,500 divided by 1,005 teachers or 11.4 students per teacher. There are 257 Nashua students in
the Academy of Science and Design. The entire enrollment is 525. That saves 257 divided by 11.4 is
22.5 teachers that you don’t have to hire because they are at the Academy of Science and Design;
otherwise they would have to be educators in the Nashua system. 22.5 teachers at a rate of $89,000 per
teacher is $2 million. You add to that the 45% overhead it doubles the teachers cost. The savings just
for the Academy of Science and Design is $2.9 million that the taxpayers don’t have to pay. If you look
at the 464 Nashua students at all of the regional schools; Manchester, Derry; there are about 10 or so, all
of it is in the Board of Education data, that would save $3.6 million and if you multiply that by the 45%
overhead that amounts to $5.2 million that Nashua taxpayers do not have to pay because those students
do not go to public schools. Let’s look at it another way, the state pays Nashua $40.1 million in
education aid and that computes to $3,400 per student in education aid and if you multiply that times the
275 students who are at the Academy of Science and Design, that’s a savings of $2.62 million. Look at
all of the charter schools, there are 464 students and multiply that by $13,000 and the state aid of $3,400
you end up with $4.4 million. No matter how you look at it the savings are enormous. In O-016-011 we
are talking about a tax reduction of $80,000 for the Academy of Science and Design and $145,000 for all
the other charter schools; that compares with up to a $5 million savings? This is a no brainer. You can
see that the Nashua taxpayers are going to get tax relief, you get better schools and you should fully
support O-016-011.
The other thing that | wanted to talk about is R-16-015; the expendable trust fund for pensions but there
is no such thing as an “expendable” trust fund. Now this came before at a cost $2.3 million and now it is
$350,000. It wasn’t needed at $2.3 million and it isn’t needed in the form of $350,000. Here are the
facts. The fiscal 17 budget covers the additional $350,000. Look at account 52150 on page 21. A
question was asked by Alderman Schoneman of CFO Griffin on May 18'" and CFO Griffin said “yes, we
funded it.” Why do you need to override the spending cap in 2016 when it’s already funded in 2017, it
makes no sense, unless you have an ulterior motive. (inaudible) This account 52150 is funded at
$21.67 million, its $350,000 above last years’ funding as | mentioned earlier. Then there is account 5175
just for the schools alone, they got an additional $800,000. Then there is account 89725, that’s another
$500,000 in transfers and it’s attached to the city retirement fund. Then there is 7025, trust funds, the
city retirement trust fund which was set up in the year 2000, then there is a trust fund 7076 which is the
school retirement trust fund. | think | still have $300,000 in it, | think it was $700,000 a month ago. There
is funding for pensions all over this budget. Many mentioned the savings set aside in the fund balance,
there is no such thing as savings set aside in the fund balance but there is a term called designated fund
balance. The designated fund balance is recommended in the CAFR report. They recommend that the
CFO set aside some delegated money but that set aside has no legal authority because it doesn’t have
