To the Editor:

Over the past week or two, much has been made about the proposed 5.2 percent increase in our school budget. The main reason given for this increase by school board chairman Keith Allard is a huge increase in contractual teacher salaries. 

Well I say they deserve it. These people teach our children, one of the most important things in life. If you have children in our school system you understand how hard most of these teachers work. 

I once worked in the Goffstown school system and also have relatives in other schools around the country. Growing up, I never wanted to be a teacher because “they didn’t make enough money.” The salary for a teacher is not enough for me to be in a classroom with 25 children who can get you sick, talk back or not listen. 

I am a successful business person and I make great money. But you could not pay me enough to do their jobs. It takes a special person to be a public servant for a lifetime. If they are making enough money to buy a home in the county in which they live, then good for the system.

But teacher salaries alone are not the only reason our taxes will go up again next year. It is also because of wasteful uneeded spending by our school officials. I know this first hand as a former employee of our school system.

Maybe we should work together to find ways to ease our financial ailments rather than point the finger at hard-working individuals like our teachers. In the meantime, let's fire the school administrators and let our teachers run the school system here. We could give half the savings to the taxpayers and the rest towards well-deserved raises for our underpaid teachers.

MT
Goffstown