At the school deliberative session, Thursday Feb 5, 20009, only 85 out of 2905 registered voters showed up. Most were supporters of increasing the schools budget. Colleen Duquette and her supporters were jubilant after getting the budget increases they had lost and who were extremely upset about it, when the town budget committee cut the school budget to $10,048,107. This was still a big increase over last years budget; but Colleen Duquette and the school board wanted more and they made a motion to increase the school budget by $200,000.00. The motion passed as 18 people who showed up voted no and 44 voted yes. Bob Davis, tried to defend the town budget committee cuts with the fact that all towns will get additional state aid funding in 2009 and that Winchester’s share will be $529,445. The town budget committee wanted to hold that money back and give the tax payers of Winchester a break in their tax bills, during these hard economic times; but the School Board had it's way, not happy with the increases they had already received, they wanted more. It is time we voted out people like Colleen Duquette, who continue to add to the tax burden of the citizen's of Winchester.
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6 comments:
What good does it do us to have a budget committee if school boards, selectmen and less than 2% of voters can over turn their cuts? Maybe we can get those 44 people to pay our taxes for us too, seeing as how they like to spend money. Oh that's right, it wasn't their money.
That is what happens in a SB-2 town (ballot vote on warrant articles). This is why it is so important to show up at deliberative session. You get people like Chris Thompson running the show. If people do not show up Saturday you can expect more spending increases. All the hard work of a budget committee can be changed by the special interest.
It seems to me that we have the opportunity once again to vote no for the budget. I do believe that if you vote no on the $150,000 special ed request it will not fly. However, we need to pay particular attention to the default budget if the new one gets voted down. We as taxpayers also have the opportunity to change our board members. It is very interesting that now the board will review our request to bring the high school back to town. Perhaps they have heard the rumors that our contract with Keene may not be renewed. It's time for us to pay attention to the details. Oh and if the school returns we do have enough teachers who are certified 7-12 to cover the subjects for freshmen(so don't get sold a bill of goods from the board). This game has got to stop!
It must be embarrassing to spend nite after nite and hour after hour on the budget com. just to find out from Mr. Thompson and a few others how stupid you really are. That's why we no longer have town meetings, where the special interests can intimidate anyone with a different opinion.
I thought the petition article was changed at the deliberative session to form an exploritoy committee to see what the high school options would be and not to mandate that the high school return. Am I off on this?
Its article 6, and that all it well do is form a committee to look into re-opening Thayer High. It can't hurt to take a look.
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