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January 21,
2009
Budget
Committee slashes both School and Town proposed budgets
Historic
reductions: Committee actions a clear sign of
the times
GOFFSTOWN
– The Goffstown Budget Committee, acknowledging the
clear message taxpayers sent them at last week's public
hearing, made major reductions in both the school and town
proposed budgets at last night's Budget Committee meeting.
The town budget was the first to be considered, and of the
four town articles considered, only the Goffstown Main
Street Program appropriation of $15,000 and a
no-tax-impact land purchase article survived unscathed.
The committee voted NOT to recommend an article to
appropriate $500,000 to be placed in the Fire Apparatus
Capital Reserve Fund by a vote of 8-6-0. But the
largest reduction of the evening was made to the town's
proposed operating budget.
Interestingly, the Board of Selectmen had worked
diligently to come up with a budget that not only kept the
town-side portion of the tax rate unchanged, but actually
reduced that tax rate by four cents. But the Budget
Committee wanted more.
When the topic finally turned to the town operating
budget, committee member Roger Richard immediately made a
motion to reduce the town's recommended operating budget
from $19,362,358 to a surprising $17,970,838. The
motion was seconded by Roxann Hunt.
After spirited debate, the motion passed 7-5-2, and a
later motion to recommend that amount on the town warrant
also passed 7-6-1.
Then came a review of the school board's proposed budget.
After questions were posed to school board chairman Keith
Allard concerning one of the articles on the school
warrant, an appropriation article to spend $60,000 to
study possible expansion of the the district's facilities,
the committee voted 10-2-2 NOT to recommend it to the
voters. Committee member Christi Garrison explained
the majority position, saying, "This study doesn't
need to be done now. Why can't it wait a year or
two?" No answer was forthcoming from
Allard.
Another article concerned the School Resource Officer
appropriation of $54,043. That article was
unanimously recommended by the committee.
But it was the school board's proposed operating budget
that the committee focused on.
On December 4, 2008, the Budget Committee first considered
the school board's proposed budget of $35,622,026.
That number was comprised of a general fund balance figure
of $34,202,026, along with $475,000 for the special
revenue line and $945,000 for the food services
line. At that meeting, the budget committee voted to
reduce the proposed recommended budget by $1,261,379, for
a total of $34,360,647. Then, on December 16th,
after heated debate and what many committee members
considered questionable tactics by school supporters, the
committee voted to return $700,000 to that budget, for a
total of $35,060,647.
But last night, the majority of the budget committee
arrived after having had time to absorb both comments from
taxpayers at public hearing on January 13th, and what many
of them considered "warnings" from Allard and
committee member William Hart on December 16th that the
school board would secure whatever budget amount it wanted
at the school deliberative session if the budget committee
didn't succumb to demands to return that $700,000 to the
school budget.
The committee's reaction was swift and decisive.
By a vote of 8-5-1, the budget committee further
reduced its recommended operating budget amount for the
school board by $995,228, for a total reduction from the
school board's original proposal of $1,556,607.
The result is that the Budget Committee will be
recommending an operating budget for the school board of
$34,065,419 for the 2009-2010 year, which is an increase
of $3,225,238 over what the it cost the school board to
run the school district last year.
Unless this figure is changed at the school deliberative
session on February 2nd, the Goffstown School Board will
be forced to operate next year with $3.2 million MORE than
it spent last year.
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