January 31,
2010
MEMBER
EDITORIAL
Come out to the School Deliberative Session
By BILL
GORDON |
In these extremely difficult financial times, the Goffstown School Board requested 99.9% of their "default" budget and were quick to tout their frugality (about $40,000 of frugality). Ladies and gentlemen, the "default" budget essentially represents business as usual. It is not as you might think, a "bare bones" budget by any means.
In the private sector, with or without union contracts, a fiscally responsible business makes tough decisions. It reduces expenditures by up to 10% and expects that their company moves on with a little bit less and does as much as before.
You should be as outraged as I am about the Goffstown School Board having the audacity to request a 4% raise for themselves this year! You should be outraged that the art department requested a $500 stainless steel cart to wheel pottery projects back and forth to the kiln. On and on goes the list of fancy toys, non-necessary items, and pay raises upon pay raises.
The school population is flat, flat, flat and the school budget is fat, fat, fat.
At home, you may be operating on 5%, 10% or even 40% or more percent less than you operated on last year or the year before. Why does the Goffstown School Board continue ignore the very public they are the servants to and cry that the meanies at the Budget Committee are almost committing crimes against humanity?
The school deliberative session is at 7:00PM on Monday, February 1st at the high school. The Goffstown Budget Committee is bringing forward a budget that is a mere 2% less than the amount requested by the Goffstown School Board. Come help it remain at that number or even reduce it more. The sky will not fall if the school budget is even reduced to the maximum allowable number of $32,044,652, but it cannot happen if you say at home Monday evening.
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