To the citizens of SAD 4

To the Editor;

Last year at this time I was penning what appears to be a series of annual letters to the citizens of SAD 4. You may remember that the voters twice voted down the district budget and finally passed it on the third round, having been appalled at the first school committee attempt to put out a budget with 11-13 percent increases in the assessments to each of the towns in the district.

After all the budget kerfuffle, the school board chair read a statement that a lesson had been learned and that the school committee would really look for cost-saving measures for this current year. If indeed any effort has been made to fulfill that statement, it has been a failure of gigantic proportions.

Last Monday night, the school committee passed a budget for a fiscal year beginning this coming July that, while the overall budget increased 1.7 percent, the funding of it will increase the assessments to each of the towns as follows: Abbot 14.04 percent; Cambridge 15.42 percent; Guilford 16.26 percent; Parkman 19.55 percent; Sangerville 15 percent, and Wellington 18.76 percent.

Early on in the budgeting process, I witnessed the superintendent pounding the table, exclaiming that the towns got a break last year (Really?) and this year would just have to come up with the money. She insisted that it was impossible to make any cuts to this budget; it was bottom line tight (Really?). (I am old enough that her presentation brought up memories of Khrushchev with a shoe at the United Nations!)

The budget committee asked the superintendent to prepare a cutting plan that would roll back the increase to the assessments to 7 percent and to 0 percent. When finally presented, the administration had taken a tiered approach to the cutting, starting with everything they thought would incite the citizens to support the budget. The proposal, which they all hastened to say was just a talking point, cut teaching positions, programs potentially including art and music, and the emotional kicker, sports. Then there were three additional tiers, the very last one of which included trimming some administration.

The approach is simply unacceptable and calculated to inflame, if not blackmail.

The district is, in fact, over administered. One whole position of Director of Curriculum/Evaluation … needs to be dropped. It is simply not sustainable for a district that will probably not see a total student population of 600 next year. There are other strategies to be applied as well.

And there are past actions to be admitted to and reckoned with as the failures that they were. The debate about the mysterious, but not mythical, fund balance needs to be clarified by documentation that clearly and specifically shows what has happened. A revisit by the auditor to the whole board and a frank and detailed review of the accounting system would aid to reveal the whole truth. I do not believe anything illegal has occurred, but accounting is complicated and can be conveniently used.

On the matter of fund balance the district is taking the Chicken-Little- The-Sky- Is-Falling-And- We-Are- All-Going-To-Be-Smashed—In—The-Immediate-Future approach … much too conservative. I know conservative; this action is well to the right of that. The district is carrying a contingency account that it could drop ($40K). It is carrying special ed tuition that they probably will not use.

The school committee has negotiated raises in master contracts and given raises to administration that it cannot afford. There are potential cuts all over the place before they approach the decimation of whole programs.

The school committee chose a few years ago to shift the latitude in the budget created by the last big debt service payment on the elementary building to other areas and continued to assign over $300,000 on other expenditures, while failing to make it clear that the state would no longer be sending the district that money, since it wasn’t owed. Net result; pass it on to the taxpayer to make up the revenue.

The administration and school committee completely ignored the statement made by the board chair and far exceeded last year’s efforts in passing on huge, unheard of increases in the assessments to the towns.

And, lastly, they have put out a piece of paper (which makes it public domain) to look at “potential” cuts that are designed to incite the public and to push them to vote for assessments they absolutely cannot afford. They haven’t taken the action they need to take and are blaming every entity and population but themselves. This did not occur overnight; it has been developing over a period of years. No one has been grappling with it.

What can you do? Move directly to the middle of the alphabet and focus on the word “No”. Attend the budget meeting coming up May 26 and make yourself informed and heard. Go to the polls in June and similarly vote “No”. Every vote and individual’s opinion counts. Force the board to take responsible moves to improve education for the students and to do it more cost effectively. It is both necessary and possible.

Ann B. Bridge
Parkman