At the end of a tense Henniker School Board meeting Tuesday night, board members decided to privatize Henniker Community School’s food services.
Faced with cutting more than $100,000 from this year’s budget, board members accepted a bid from New Hampshire-based company Cafe Services, which they estimated would save the school $28,000. The bid would employ four food service workers, one fewer than what is at the school now.
The school board voted 4-1 to approve the measure, with Ellen Fioretti in opposition.
In March, voters approved a $7.4 million budget for the school district, $115,000 less than the $7.51 million budget proposed by the school board.
Throughout the meeting, board members oftentimes faced frustration and anger from school staff members and town residents in attendance. But with such steep cuts looming, school board members said their hands were tied.
“What we’ve heard from the voters is that they want us to cut $115,000 from the budget,” said Chairwoman Deb Urbaitis. “We are down to very few places to do that.”
Urbaitis added the board has also had to cut some paraprofessionals, as well as new supplies and technology projects that were planned for this year.
In March, outgoing school board Chairman Gary Guzouskas said he believed the cuts would most likely come from the arts and co-curricular education.
Henniker Food Service Director Marty Davis said she was completely caught off guard by the board’s choice to privatize school breakfasts and lunches. Davis said no one from the school board or district had approached her first to see whether she could make the savings in her own budget.
But board member Zach Lawson challenged Davis, asking “are you asserting right now, that had we asked, (cutting $28,000) is something you could have come up with?”
Davis said she didn’t believe she could have made cuts that large, but said she was disappointed not to have been included in the conversation.
“For me as a program director, it would have been courteous to say, we need to cut costs,” she said.
The move to a private company was a quick one. As Davis pointed out, the change was only considered after town meeting, and school board members had just received bids from food service companies Tuesday night, a few hours before they made their final decision.
Some residents at the meeting said they were uncomfortable privatizing the food service because they valued the daily interactions between the women who work in the lunchroom and students.