Concord Board of Ed approves 12.2% tax increase, dealing heavy blow to taxpayers and educators alike

The Concord Board of Education unanimously approved a 2027 budget that, at $124 million overall, is essentially flat from the current year.

Under the hood, the budget will deal a heavy blow to local taxpayers and educators alike.

The $115 million operating budget, increasing less than a quarter of one percent, was achieved by cutting around 40 staff positions district wide, many of them teachers. Even so, the budget is estimated to represent a 12.2% increase to the local tax rate, or a $724 increase to the tax bill of a $400,000 home.

“I feel bad on all levels,” Cara Meeker, the board’s vice president, said Tuesday night. “Which says to me we worked hard on all levels to get as good as we can get out of this terrible year.”

Falling revenue meant the district had to cover more of its expenses with local taxes than in previous years. A significant portion of the revenue shortfall, about $3 million, is the result of decreased investment from the state of New Hampshire. Since equalized property values are on the rise in Concord, the district qualifies for less money derived from the portion of the funding formula that’s tied to “need.”

Not all of the revenue loss stems from reduced state funding, though: Millions in spiking special education and health insurance expenses meant the board had to use savings to help patch unexpected holes in the current budget halfway through the 2025-2026 school year. Special education and insurance costs have only continued to climb, and taxpayers now bear the brunt.

Kim Bleier, president of the teachers’ union and a three-decade veteran history teacher in Concord schools, said the staff cuts included in this budget are the most sweeping she has ever seen.

On one hand, Bleier said in an interview last week, teachers understand the reality of staff shrinkage.

“This is not a crisis of the district’s own making,” she said.

Enrollment remains on the decline as costs associated with everything from special education to electricity continue to skyrocket. The state is looking to contain, not expand, the amount of funding it sends to local public school districts, and Concord was hit hard by falling state help this year.

Nevertheless, teachers are “on edge,” Bleier said.

The loss of jobs aren’t educators’ only concern, though that’s certainly a major worry. More tenured staff, who are not at risk of being laid off, know that cuts will lead to larger class sizes and fewer hands on deck than they currently have. The middle and high school will see the biggest drop in teaching staff.

At the same time, many local teachers, Bleier noted, are Concord residents. They pay local tax bills and have kids in local schools. They’ll feel the aftershocks of the new budget on multiple fronts.

Meanwhile, the union is in the midst of negotiating a new contract with the board. Of course the budget looms over those talks, Bleier said: “It’s hard to advocate for what you feel is the right salary and benefits package when the person across the hall from you might be losing their job.”

The process that determines who will be laid off is spelled out in the new collective bargaining agreement. That process begins Wednesday morning.

Over two workshops this week, the board dug for cash in the couch cushions, increasing fees for sports around 10%, upping rental rates on district spaces for events and raising preschool tuition by 7%.

There were also some new staff reductions, including a handful of permanent substitutes cut and a separate slate of more senior educators who took early retirements or buyouts.

More positions were added back into the budget, and the final plan is slightly higher than the budget posted for public discussion a few weeks ago.

Notably, instead of removing an art teacher at both the high school and middle school, board members decided that one will be shared between the two schools.

With a concern for class sizes in the youngest grades, the board also narrowly voted to restore three of the six elementary classroom teachers previously cut.

“The vast, vast majority of the public input we received was to cut less,” said board member Madeleine Mineau. “If folks are unhappy with the tax rate, they need to get a little bit more involved.”

Concord isn’t alone in facing teacher layoffs this year.

Coping with a comparable budget deficit, Manchester school officials have said they would need to lay off between 42 and 113 people to reach compliance with the Queen City’s cap on tax increases, according to reporting by Manchester Ink Link.

Smaller districts across New Hampshire, especially those where enrollment is falling the fastest, have faced the similar pressures of ballooning health insurance costs and slashed state funding, struggles that were evident at town meetings this spring.

Meanwhile, longstanding debates in state government about how much state funding should go towards public schools rage on.

Board President Pamela Walsh encouraged residents unsatisfied with the outcome of the budget process to “call the governor’s office tomorrow.”

“We have had a lot of tax cuts in the past couple years in the state for out of state corporations and wealthy investors,” she said. “The only tax that almost everybody in the state pays and that hits small businesses the most, and regular working people the most, is the property tax. […] And that’s the one that all the cost keeps getting shifted onto.”

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