Between a rock and a hard place

Superintendent Michael Delahanty sounds a little on edge over the phone as he explains to me for the umpteenth time why Salem ought to have a kindergarten program in place by the start of the new school year.

"The rest of the world except for eleven or twleve towns in New Hampshire have decided kindergarten is beneficial," he says. "What we're really trying to do is present an education for the kids and the tax rate isn't the only story there."

"Right," I say and then go on to play the devil's advocate.

"I believe that the state has told us that we're obligated to have kindergarten to meet the definition of adequate education. If we're obligated to meet that then the money belongs in our budget," Delahanty says finally, drawing a visual of the spot in between the proverbial rock and the hard place the school district has found itself in.

Which is an apt analogy for the problem that Salem and a handful of other towns mostly clustered around southern New Hampshire have found themselves in after the state mandated that those communities without kindergarten get started on putting one together.

In Salem, the financial burden is particularly onerous. While the state will send the town roughly $900,000 in aid, the total cost of implementing the program - hiring teachers, buying materials, etc. - will run up to about $1.6 million. Which leaves the town responsible for the remaining $700,000.

Complicating the issue is a matter of constitutional debate. Under Article 28A of the New Hampshire constitution, the state cannot present towns with an unfunded mandate. Some residents are now calling redefining the state definition of an adequate education to include kindergarten an "unfunded mandate."

Which is the stand the town's budget committee took last week when the voted 5-4 to strip the funding for the kindergarten program out of the school district's operating budget.

"I think the state has mandated it to us. If it's a mandate they should pay for it. If it's not a mandate then we should have the right to vote on it," said Michael Carney, who cast the deciding vote.

Now the school board has to take up the challenge of either convincing voters to restore the funding during a Feb. 5 deliberative session or make budget cuts in other areas, like eliminating busing for the town's high school students. In another year this would already have been an uphill battle, but against the backdrop of a recession and the loss of Windham students who are moving to a new high school in their own town - taking with them a cool couple million in tuition money - people are not likely to be convinced easily.

"Salem is suffering the way every other town in New Hampshire is and every other city in the country is," said Stephen Campbell, another member of the budget committee and vocal supporter of nearby Hudson's lawsuit against the state mandate. "You just have to look at the houses for sale, the empty businesses up and down Route 28. It's hard to imagine the School Board could ask for so much that the taxes would raise over 10 percent."