The Winchester School Board refused to have the meeting on a Saturday so that more parents and concerned citizens could attend and voice their outrage over the increase in spending and new contracts to add over
$ ONE MILLION MORE to an already over bloated top heavy money pit. Winchester voters will have a chance to weigh in on the new budget and contracts and they better show up in numbers Thursday night; or start getting those "HOME FOR SALE" signs ready.
WINCHESTER — Winchester School District voters are invited to a public hearing Thursday before the budget is set for the deliberative session next month.
For at least the second year in a row, the Winchester School Board and the district’s budget committee are disagreeing over the numbers.
The budget committee sets the budget proposal for the warrant, but the school board can make recommendations and is in charge of deciding how the money is spent.
The school board’s recommended budget sits at $11,243,320, while the budget committee recommends $10,735,325.
The default budget, which kicks in if the budget proposal is defeated at the polls, is the current year’s budget plus contractual expenses and minus one-time expenses.
That figure sits at $11,112,784.
All of the proposals for the 2011-12 budget include money to run the district’s new administration, which was created after voters decided to withdraw from N.H. School Administrative Unit 38.
The cost to run the school this year is $10,006,293, plus $253,169 for Winchester’s share of the Unit 38 budget, for a total of $10,259,462.
The budget committee’s recommendation for next year would be a 4.6 percent increase from this year.
The school board’s recommendation would be a 9.6 percent increase.
However, not all of the increase would have to come from local taxpayers’ pockets, officials said.
“To the extent possible, increases are offset by ... increases in non-local revenues,” district Business Administrator Thomas P. O’Connor wrote in an e-mail message.
He's counting on the State to come through with money; wishful thinking, the State is near broke.
If the school board recommendations are approved, the estimated tax increase would be $154,192, about 2.7 percent, which could result in an estimated 55-cent increase on the local school tax rate, O’Connor said.
The tax impact for the budget committee’s proposal was not available.
Besides the operating budget, voters will be asked to consider a three-year agreement with teachers and a one-year contract for the newly formed support staff union.
The teachers contract would add $37,306 to the budget in 2011-12. Last year, voters rejected a one-year contract with teachers that would have added $45,060.
The support staff contract would add $8,338.
The district public hearing will be held on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Winchester School cafeteria.
After the public hearing on Thursday night, the budget committee will meet to vote on a budget figure for the warrant for the deliberative session in February. Voters will then have their chance to change the figures before going to the polls in March.
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Headline in the Union Leader,STATE BUDGET WILL HAVE BILLION DOLLAR SHORTFALL. Most fixed income households lost around $50 a month from SS because medicare goes up each year. For some reason education and law enforcement think they are immune to changing the way they do business. It also shows there total lack of respect for the tax paying public.
It is most important to attend meetings this year, and give input. If this proposed budget goes through, the potential for a whopping increase is in place. The school's proposal doesn't take into consideration the financial mess at the state level. If cuts are made to state aid, we will have one expensive mess on our hands.
I am glad the school board won't be meeting on a Saturday, the weekends are to short as it is. I would rather go out on a week night then waste a Saturday. Before you start I work a 50 hour work week.
Is that tonight or next week?
No one said you had to attend and with your attitude that it would be a waste of time it shows you wouldn't anyway. many of us who are just getting home now and dealing with getting dinner ready and calling a babysitter would have liked to have been able to relax after a hard days work and relished being able to go on a Saturday when we didn't have to rush around.
The meeting is tonight, not next week. Thanks Informer for keeping us apprised of this serious situation and giving us an opportunity to know the facts.
The big deal will be school deliberative, I think its Feb10Th, you may want to check on that. The word is that if we can get 40 voters that would vote to cut the budget, we can rule. It takes that many because there is usually around 30 teachers and there family in attendance. So check on the date and lets go vote.
You are hereby notified to meet at the Winchester School Gymnasium at 7:00 PM on THURSDAY, February 10th, 2011, to consider the following articles in deliberative session, pursuant to RSA 40:13.
Dr. C said, "the Budget Committee is at their tricks again trying to get their friends to attend the meeting."
Ken Gardner made a comment, and I would like it to be confirmed. He said, "Almost 50% of the eighth grade students entering Keene High School next year are Special Ed students."
Is this true? What is the actual number? Why are there so many students with Special Ed needs? It can't all be inbreeding.
Here are some stats that should leave everyone wondering, “What’s in the water?”
The number of Special Ed children attending Keene High School breaks down to this:
2005 = 16%
2006 = 17.8%
2007 = 19%
2008 = 18.2 %
2009 = 23.3%
2010 = 25.2%
2011 = 27.8%
2012 is estimated to be 31.7%
There are 46 students graduating from the eighth grade this year.
21 of the students are SPED. The Keene High School tuition that Colleen negotiated is $11,793./ per regular students and $22,847/per SPED.
There will be a total of 129 regular students ($1,521,297.) and 60 SPED ($1,370,820.). Roughly $2.9 million total.
How and why are so many children being “coded” SPED? Who is running the “Special Education” services?
For all of the huge amounts of money that have been poured into the Winchester school system, there is little evidence that it has amounted to very much. To have that many students coded sped is an indictment to the people running the school system. Something has gone terribly wrong here.
Okay, gang I am a former teacher at the high school. Here's the deal, ask Teresa Sepe about the year that she was on the board. Sharpen up your pencils and cut $500,000 out of the budget, and yes it can be done. In fact, very easily. You shop for the school like you do for your own budget.
The special education numbers floor me. I can not believe that we have that many children that do not meet the standards. In fact, if this is the case and the numbers are going up then "can" the whole lot of the teachers and get new teachers with fresh ideas. Obviously, what they are doing is not working! Oh, and if the teachers say this cannot be done I say BS put them on a "plan." Enough said our children matter.
It's time to step up to the plate and tell thbe board suck it up we don't have the money. And for the teachers suck it up and smile your have a job!
Here's hoping that Gary O'Neal does NOT run for office again. The illustrious Chairman had the audacity to sleep through most of the meeting. When he did get up to speak it was nonsense.
They have a SPED student that moved to town this past year, and we pay out $300,000 in out-of-state tuition for this child. The child will be turning 21 in October, but in the mean time according to Gary, the town was NOT prepared for this tuition. "We should have put the extra money we had into the Special Ed reserve, instead of giving it back to the tax payers".
Then when given the opportunity to do that later in the evening, the board opted not to do it.
The 1/13/11 Union Leader article about the nearly 900+million dollar state deficit, is still online this morning. Where does the Winchester school board get off endorsing the SAU built budget with a million dollar increase this coming year? One of the state budget fixes is probably going to be as education funding cuts. Great!! I'm really proud that the school system has produced such nice crops of special education students for us to pay for. Can the Informer print the Winchester school administration salaries and benefits?? A reader comment on the UL article posted Bow's, and it's an eye opener.
The public was NOT given this information. The only information given was on the MS-27 form. Regular Programs (which includes Keene High School tuition, the teacher's salaries, etc) was $3,555,352 for last year. This year, the School Board is asking for $3,639,282($84,000 more than last year) and the Budget Committee recommended $3,570,934 ($15.582 more than last year, $68,348 less than the School Board's recommendation).
Please note, that I was told that they reduced that from the Administration's bloatted salaries and appropriation - NOT from the Teacher's salaries.
Last year's budget was for $10,448,469 (they spent $10,259,462). This year, they wrote the Warrant Article to say, "...Should this article be defeated, the default budget shall be $11,112,784, which is the same as last year...." Does anyone else see anything wrong with this? That may be what they asked for, but it's not what we gave them.
The School Board is asking for $11,243,320. And The Budget Committee is recommending $10,500,000. We all know (from experience) that they will change this at Deliberative! Unless everyone is willing to come out on a THURSDAY night and vote for change.
It is very frustrating to see the articles in the Sentinel and on the news of town after town lowering budgets and not asking for raises; town officials and school board members who actually sharpen their pencils and do their homework, that actually get that you can't expect more money from people out of work or losing homes and wondering how to eat and heat their homes. I am appalled by the "you owe me" attitude of some of the people wanting more money. And the teachers and new/old SAU staff want more money when all they seem to produce are more Special ed kids. Are they truly special ed kids or are they just misdiagnosed kids because the schools are not doing their job but want more money????
I have a question of any who might have studied the number of special education kids issue???? WHY do we have so many special education kids??? A poor town with many welfare households? Poor pre school environments? Poor teachers? Misdiagnosed kids and bad programs/staff for assessment? Is ANYONE assessing WHY and attempting to fix it??? What is the rate in other towns with the No Child Left Behind laws??? People have talked about it and made fun of Winchester about it for years but is anyone doing anything about it besides complaining about our out of sight taxes????
This too bothers me! Questions that I have asked - Is it because we are so close to the border with Massachusetts? Their welfare is for two years, and NH's is for four years. Are they coming over the border and bringing with them lots of social issues?
Do we have school officials catering to SPED children for Federal funding?
Or are other communities suffering too?
Is it an environmental issue or is it a health issue?
Too many questions - not answered.
Today's Sentinel 1/20, page8, N.H. Voices. When state aid gets cut, local property taxpayers will know it. Whats it going to take to lose the blinders?
In Washington, there is now Congressional talk of cuts in the budget range of 90 billion dollars. If that suggestion bears fruit and is combined with the 8-900 million dollar gap in the next NH fiscal budget, it isn't too hard to figure out what will happen. Large portions of our local education budget comes from both sources. We should no longer take for granted that the current levels of school aid will manifest itself. We are engaged in pie in the sky budgeting here. When it happens , I predict that the school board members will jump ship to cover their inability to control the SAU and save face. Fasten your taxpayer seatbelts.
The school system can pay it's bills with "I owe yous" when we run out of money. Regardless of how the Sentinel likes to print articles about how better things are getting, NH is at the edge of a cliff. The state will be making budget cuts and when it hits home, we will have to join places like California. The state treasurer there will have to issue I owe yous unless they cut state spending. The school board should take notice.
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