Bartlett school budget tops $9 million for first time

BARTLETT — The Bartlett School Board is proposing its first $9 million budget, and that does not include warrant articles. The board — Emily Calderwood, Heather Forbes, Scott Grant, Nancy Kelemen and Andrew Light — voted unanimously last Tuesday night during a nearly four-hour meeting in the community room at Josiah Bartlett Elementary School to bring forward a budget of $9,138,749 to a budget hearing to be held Feb. 4 at 6 p.m. at the school. The budget is up $339,726 (3.72 percent) over last year ($8,799,023).

Chief among the increases, according to Grant, who presented the budget to about a dozen people on Tuesday, Jan. 7, is the $383,359 cost of Bartlett’s tuition to Kennett High School (from $1,711,316 to $2,094,675), along with a $169,000 in repairs to building/contracted service (from $115,900 to $284,900) and $88,000 payment on the first year of interest for a five-year $1.24 million lease from Siemens Engineering to switch from fuel oil to liquid propane in the school.