MANCHESTER, N.H. – The Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) on June 3 decided against moving forward with a referendum making the Manchester School District into a department of the city’s government.
In the days heading up to the meeting, City Attorney Emily Rice and City Clerk Matt Normand sent letters to the board indicating that turning the school district back into a department would have limited impact on the status quo, but there was not consensus over agreement with those assessments.
Ward 8 Alderman Ed Sapienza said that the opinion of the clerk and attorney was important but elected officials such as the Aldermen need to make up their own mind, with Sapienza responding to Ward 10 Alderman Bill Barry’s assertion that their viewpoints should be taken into account.
Barry asked if all the relevant state statutes related to the change would need to be on the ballot, leading to Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais reiterating his concerns that a lack of clarity in this process could lead to potential litigation against the city, echoing a series of law suits between the city and school district two decades ago.
BMA Chair Joseph Kelly Levasseur, who recommended at the board’s last meeting that the wording on the referendum could just be identical to the one brought before voters in 2001 (see above), or even just changing the name from Manchester School District to Manchester School Department.
“If this is not a big deal and there won’t be any changes, let’s put it to the voters and change the name of the Manchester School District to the Manchester School Department,” he said.
Ward 1 Alderman Chris Morgan disagreed, believing that consensus building would create a better relationship between the city and school district.
“What I don’t understand is why we continue to go down this path. We can’t bully the school district into doing something,” said Morgan. “Let’s all get together and come up with a solution and if it takes time, so be it. But to just throw it at them and keep fighting, we all know where this is going.”
Again, the chief proponents of a referendum cited what they saw as a lack of accountability from the school district, particularly regarding budgetary matters where the hope was that the mayor could have line-item veto authority on the school budget like he does on the city budget, where the entire school budget bottom line is one single line of the city’s budget.
Ward 5 Alderman Tony Sapienza advised those that sought increased budgetary oversight in the school district to run for school board this fall.
There were also concerns regarding chargebacks, the practice of a city department such as police or public works, sending an invoice to the school district for services rendered. Ward 3 Alderman Pat Long questioned whether this would bring savings as the amount paid by the school district would just be borne by the city instead.
A vote to receive and file the two letters, effectively moving on without any related action to them, passed on a non-unanimous voice vote
Ward 7 Alderman Ross Terrio made a motion to move forward with a referendum using the original language. That failed 10-4 on a voice vote (Levasseur, Terrio and Ed Sapienza were joined by Ward 6 Alderman Crissy Kantor in supporting the motion.)