The Derry Cooperative School District is expecting more than a million dollars in refunds from the New Hampshire Local Government Center (LGC), most of which will be passed on to residents in an effort to reduce the tax burden.
The district’s employees are offered health and dental insurance from the LGC, Business Administrator Jane Simard told the School Board and television audience at the July 16 School Board meeting. The funds are part of a $33.2 million refund that LGC must make to members to comply with a hearing officer’s order that determined that LGC was keeping too much money in reserve funds.
Simard said LGC was refunding from two years, 2010-11 and 2011-12. She had already been informed of the 2011-12 refund and had included it as revenue in this year’s budget, she told the board. The anticipated refund was $259,265.14 for medical and $77,437.38, dental.
She was surprised to learn that the district would also receive a refund for 2010-11. The breakdown there is $755,115.35 for medical and $74,407.60, dental. The total of the refunds for two years is $1,166,265.30.
“What we were not told,” Simard said, “is when we will receive the money.”
A portion of the money will be returned to the employees who paid the original premiums, she said, with the rest going to offset taxes. “It will depend on the amount the employee paid in,” Simard said of the employee refunds. She emphasized that the refund was not to be spent by the district, but would go to offset taxes.
