NASHUA – Mayor Jim Donchess said after speaking with Nashua School District Superintendent Jahmal Mosley that he was raising his recommended budget percent increase from 2.1 percent to 2.4 percent.

However, this is still lower than the increase of 3.4 percent in the current proposed budget.

The goal, Donchess told board members at Wednesday night’s Board of Education Budget Committee meeting, is to keep the tax increase below 3 percent. Last year’s increase was 2.88 percent.

The tax rate is the major constraint, he said, more so than the spending cap, which was recently ruled against state law in court, and therefore unenforceable.

Donchess admitted that while he was sure the school district could undoubtedly use more money, it was still an issue of what the city can afford.

Ultimately, he said, as the board is semi-autonomous, he only has bottom-line control over the budget, and not line-item control.

Alderman Rick Dowd also spoke, offering advice from his years of experience with school budgets.

Start out with the superintendent’s budget in a spreadsheet, he said, and put it into two columns. The first column would be the original proposed budget as a guideline and reference. Separate the line items the board cannot control (electricity and the like), and then divide the rest into extremely important, important and less important, Dowd said.

“It’s a very complex process to go through … there’s never a year when you get everything you wanted,” he added.

“As you go through the budget process and listen to the various departments give their presentations … you go through and you modify that second column, add and subtract where you feel comfortable,” Dowd noted.

It may be higher or lower than either suggested amounts, he said, but that is up to the board.

“No matter what happens with the spending cap legal issues, we still have a responsibility to the taxpayers,” Dowd said. My suggestion is that you use the mayor’s recommendation as a bull’s eye, but that doesn’t mean you have to hit it,” he said.

If they cannot reach it, he also suggested they come to the Aldermen and fight for it. It all depends, though, he added, on the numbers and the needs.

During his time at the meeting, Donchess also lauded the successful implementation of full-day kindergarten, and noted that the teacher contract negotiations were a “big step forward.”

It would send the district in a “positive direction” for the next three years, Donchess added.

The meeting also included an overview of a new streamlined budget program, and an alternative to the substitute teacher pay raise that board member Howard Coffman proposed at the first budget meeting. Substitutes were leaving the Nashua district for higher paying districts, he said.

Currently, according to Daniel Donovan, chief operating officer, the district is only filling 66.69 percent of substitute needs for teachers.

The district, which pays $67 per day for substitutes, has spent $219,827 this year. With a suggested increase to $72 per day, that would go up to $236,232, which reflects the number of subs that they had, not those that were needed.

Donovan presented the idea of a loyalty program for the substitutes, paying $67 for the first 20 days, and increase that to $77 for days 21 on. Merrimack has a similar program.

These numbers do not reflect substitutes for paraeducators or for long-term subs.

A substitute teacher increase is not included in the current suggested budget numbers. Additions and subtractions will begin at the next budget meeting March 7.

There will be a public budget hearing in the Nashua High School North boardroom at 7 p.m. March 14.

Hannah LaClaire can be reached at 594-1243 or hlaclaire@nashuatelegraph.com.