A CLOSER LOOK

The estimated tax impact of next year’s budget for the newly consolidated Windham-Raymond School Department will depend on which town taxpayers live in. Raymond residents will pay an additional 45 cents per $1,000 of valuation, while Windham residents will pay only 13 cents.

Windham-Raymond School Department administrators are estimating tax increases of 45 cents per $1,000 of property valuation in Raymond and 13 cents in Windham due to the first proposed budget for the consolidated school district.

The final state aid sums are not available yet, but Assistant Superintendent Donn Davis said the total given to the districts as a guiding tool at this point are typically in line with what the district is eventually awarded.

“We’re not real confident, but we feel like this is the way things usually happen,” Davis said.

A public budget meeting will be held May 27, at which Windham and Raymond residents will have the opportunity to propose and vote on changes to the budget. A validation vote will be held at the polls June 9.

Windham’s estimated tax commitment of roughly $13.4 million is just under $250,000 more than this year’s total, while Raymond’s $8.2 million commitment is $441,000 more. Windham is using $610,000 left over from this year’s budget to offset taxes, while Raymond, where the school department has created especially tight budgets over the last few years, has only around $25,000 to carry forward.

The general costs in the new school district are split, with 55 percent coming from Windham and 45 percent from Raymond. Local-only debt, such as Windham has with renovations to the Manchester School and Raymond with its elementary school, are handled solely by the town that originally took on the debt. One exception is the debt related to Windham High School, a portion of which Raymond agreed to take as part of the consolidation.

The School Board is scheduled to meet next on April 29. If the revenue projections, which he called “an educated guess,” are off target, then the board will revisit the budget at that time, Chairman Toby Pennels said.

“I don’t expect that we will,” he said.

The only outstanding issue at this point is whether the district will take part in the state’s high school laptop initiative, which would put computers in the hands of every high school student. The four-year program would cost $328,700 per year, which board members said they would like to put off for a year unless federal stimulus money can offset the cost. Information on the amount and possible uses for the stimulus money has been hard to get, Pennels and Davis said.

“We’re a long way from saying we are going to do the laptop initiative, but we’re talking about it,” Pennels said.