MANCHESTER, N.H. – As budget season continues to roll on for Manchester municipal government, leaders of the Manchester School District provided details on their budget proposals for Fiscal Year 2027 to members of the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce on Friday, followed by questions from members of the chamber over the current scenario that could see the district forced into making significant layoffs this summer.
The roundtable discussion began with a presentation from the school district’s leaderships that was given to the Board of School Committee last month, showing the three potential FY’ 27 Manchester School District budgets forwarded to the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen: a required tax-cap compliant budget ($235,507,700), a “baseline” budget that avoids cuts ($251,405,787) and a “fully-funded” budget that meets the amount of resources that the leadership believes it needs to achieve be assured of meeting its goals ($265,290,787). Manchester School District Superintendent Jenn Chmiel told chamber members in attendance that in order to get a budget where per-pupil spending meets the state average would be even higher than the fully-funded budget, requiring an increase of approximately $55 million over its Fiscal Year 2026 budget, a number that would likely grow in future years.
Within the presentation, five potential scenarios were shared over how many position cuts or other budget cuts would be needed if the school district does not receive its baseline budget, with Chmiel stating that district leaders had analyzed many more scenarios, as well. The need for the cuts comes in part due to the end of one-time funds used in the school budgets of recent fiscal years as well as the inability to retain other additional revenues coming above the tax cap unless an override was approved by the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
An override would take approval from 10 of the board’s 14 members, and would be necessary for approval of any amount above the tax-cap compliant budget. However, there is also the possibility of a “soft override” that would come by letting the district use the existing revenue already obtained that came in over the tax cap. Chmiel could not recommend an amount below the baseline budget, fearing that the reduction in funds would reverse what she has described as progress made in recent years.
Chmiel said that the district has worked to increase the average teacher salary in the Manchester School District to approximately $71,000 a year. While this figure is slightly higher than the state average, Chmiel said that it was necessary to prevent experienced educators from leaving to nearby school districts that do not have the same complexities and challenges that Manchester manages. Approximately 25 percent of the district’s 11,712 student population are identified as requiring special education needs in addition to approximately 25 percent of students identified as having a native language other than English and approximately five percent of its population identified as homeless.
“Our teachers are sitting in classrooms with high demand, high diversity and high need, we cannot forget what we are putting on our teachers,” she said.
Chmiel said that although the possibility of modifying retirement windows for teachers has been discussed, the possibility of reopening collective bargaining agreements to freeze or lower salaries has not been discussed, given the unique stresses on Manchester educators that merit higher pay than nearby school districts. The city’s recent compensation study showed city and school employees are underpaid compared to comparable local governments. She also was reticent about asking district staff to give up more to help bridge the gap between the tax-cap compliant budget and the baseline budget.
That gap could grow approximately $10 million larger if a piece of legislation designed to remove a cap on differentiated aid is not passed by the New Hampshire legislature. The cap, which impacts no other school districts other than Manchester in its current form, has been tabled by the House of Representatives.
“This cap is very dangerous for us, and it is very much targeted at our district,” said Chmiel.
There were a variety of other concerns shared by Chmiel and her team, ranging from sudden and unexplained changes in federal funding, the reduction of emergency trust funding to half of the recommended amount by district consultants and the pending possibility of open enrollment policies enacted by the state legislature that would make it hard to predict future budget needs.
Chmiel said that unlike recent years, there has been more interest from Aldermen to learn more about the district’s needs compared to recent years, with only two unnamed Aldermen on the 14 member board not reaching out for more information at this point. A joint meeting of the Manchester Board of School Committee and Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen to discuss the budget is planned for March 25 at Manchester Memorial High School from 6 to 9 p.m., with Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais releasing his own school budget the next day.
Members of the audience expressed concern, with several asking what the business community could do to help the city’s public schools. Chmiel advised the audience to continue reaching out to the district for more information and advocate for the city’s schools where they can, citing a strong school district as a selling point for luring essential employees for their businesses to move into the area.
