March 6,
2009
EDITORIAL
Allard letter laced with disinformation, outright lies
School Board chairman again attempts to mislead voters on Article 5,
should resign |
In a March 5, 2009 letter to the Goffstown News, school board chairman Keith Allard continued his attempts to dissuade voters from supporting school article 5 on Tuesday March 10th, this time by using disinformation and, unfortunately, outright lies.
We are outraged that an elected official such as Allard has intentionally attempted to mislead the voting public with such lies and misdirection. Allard should be thankful that the Code of Ethics recently adopted by the Town is not enforceable on him (or anyone else in the school department), because we can think of nothing more unethical than an elected official intentionally and blatantly lying to his or her constituents for personal gain.
In our view, Allard should resign immediately, or be
impeached.
Don’t take our word for it. We invite you to compare the facts for
yourselves and pit those facts against Allard’s statements, to wit:
In paragraph 3 of his letter, Allard states, “In order to insure accuracy and compliance (in formulating the school default budget) the Goffstown School District goes as far as consulting the New Hampshire Department of Revenue each year to ensure that we are in compliance of the law when determining the default
budget.”
THE TRUTH: We called the NH Department of Revenue Administration ourselves to check
Allard's claim. It came as no surprise to us that Allard’s statement is a LIE.
The DRA told us that they do NOT check the accuracy of school default budgets, nor do they check for compliance to the law on how the default budget
is calculated. Rather, the only thing they check related to default budget amounts is to make sure the
default budget amount is entered in the right place on the submission
form, and that’s all. Allard’s statement is an outright
lie.
Don’t take our word for it – call the DRA yourself and check it out.
In paragraph 4 of his letter, Allard states, “The school district has the same checks and balances as the Goffstown selectmen. The selectmen are also responsible for calculating their default
budget.”
THE TRUTH: This is another outright lie.
The Town default budget is calculated by the town
administration, not the Board of Selectmen. Further, the Goffstown Board of Selectmen has
NO budget of their own (unlike the school board), does
NOT spend budget money (unlike the school board) and does NOT calculate “their own”, or anyone else’s, default budget (unlike the school board).
Allard’s statement is another outright lie.
Don’t take our word for it – call any Goffstown selectman and check it out for yourself.
In his last paragraph, Allard states, “If the petition article was truly submitted to ensure a checks-and-balance in Goffstown, why then were the selectmen not requested to do the
same?”
THE TRUTH: According to Guy Caron, who submitted Petition Article 5, selectmen were not requested to do the same because
1) selectmen don’t have a budget of their own, 2)
selectmen don’t have money to spend, and 3) selectmen
DO NOT calculate the town default budget. The Town Administration Office does.
But Caron also mentioned that he was unaware that the Town is using he same flawed method for deriving a starting number to plug into the state’s default budget calculation formula as the school board
is until it was pointed out to him by a selectman, who urged a petition article similar to school article 5 should be submitted for the town as well.
Unfortunately, by then the deadline had past for submission of petition articles.
Caron did state, however, at this week's "Meet the
Candidates" night, that he intends to do so next year.
Don’t take our word for it – call Caron and check it out for yourself.
In paragraph 2 of his letter, Allard laments the Budget Committee’s failure to review the school budget line-by-line, and says this is due to some Budget Committee members claiming they don’t understand the school budget.
He implies that due to this, the Budget Committee is incapable of properly calculating a default budget.
THE TRUTH:
-
That claim was made by a single Budget Committee member on December 16, 2008;
-
Calculating a school board’s proposed operating budget has nothing to do with calculating its default budget.
Both budgets are prepared independently of each other, and in completely different
ways;
-
The school default budget has no line items – it is a flat amount.
There is no preparation involved, as it is based on
last year's approved budget, adjusted up or down as
the case may have been;
-
The method for calculating a default budget is established by state law.
The Budget Committee is quite capable of reading,
comprehending and following state law;
-
Budget Committee chairman Dan Cloutier, who worked for years in New Hampshire’s State Budget Office, has stated publicly on numerous occasions that calculating the school default budget will be a simple matter for the Budget
Committee, and will take little time.
Don’t take our word for it – call Dan Cloutier and check it out for yourself.
Don’t be misled by self-serving lies and twisted truths.
Vote YES on BOTH school articles 2 and 5, and while
you're at it, demand chairman Allard's resignation for
having lied to us all for his own gain.
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