Overview Information on the Merrimack Valley School District Budget

Macro level information to provide context to the annual budget brought to voters for their approval
 
Each year in developing our budget, the Merrimack Valley School District asks for your support in our mission of “Ensuring that ALL students are provided with the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to prepare them for college, career, and citizenship.” This is an extraordinarily lofty and challenging mission and our focus is on our students. We strive to spark a passion in and engage all of our unique learners. With that in mind, we also endeavor to be conscientious and conservative in our budget development. We take our charge as stewards of taxpayer’s money very seriously. Although our overall budget has not increased significantly in the past 4-years, school districts, towns, and cities in NH are all facing decreasing revenues that typically help offset certain expenses and provide financial support in our budgets.
 
The Merrimack Valley School Districts uses the following calculation to divide educational costs out to our MV communities:
 
Total Approved Budget (inclusive of all warrant articles) - Revenues = District Assessment
 
The District Assessment is then allocated (apportioned) to each town based on the number of resident students (ADMA - or Average Daily Membership in Attendance). 98.6% of the Assessment is distributed in that fashion. Approximately 1.4% of the District’s expenses are currently classified as “capital outlays.” These expenses are disbursed to the towns based on the equalized valuation of each community (estimated true and market value of all taxable property in a municipality). From these amounts, the local education portion of tax bills are set.
 
Over the past 4-years, the increase to the MVSD budget is a total of 1.89%. However, in that same period revenues (from the state and federal levels) have decreased by a total of 10.12%. Resultingly, the District Assessment has increased by 13.18% in this timeframe. The equalized assessed valuation of each town serves as the denominator in determining the local educational tax rate. As such changing valuations impact the tax rate as well. The Public Hearing for the proposed 2018-2019 budget in on Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at MVHS.
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