The Sept. 12 vote on our RSU 9 district budget is extremely important. A vocal majority of voters at the school budget meeting last evening voted for “flat funding” for our school district for the next year. The voters essentially reduced the school budget by $887,984. This recommended increase included fixed costs over which the school has no control: increased costs for special education services, fuel, staff salaries. If this budget passes at the polls, the district will have to reduce their budget by $887,984, which will by necessity involve staff and program, including sports and music. This will greatly impact the school experience for our children and their future.
Dividing the requested increase of $887,984 by the total projected town assessments comes to $.069 per dollar assessed. Therefore, the additional cost for a home assessed at $100,000 would be $6.90 over the year. (of course, each town will vary on that)
We are very fortunate to have high quality schools for our youth. To degrade the quality of our schools by starving them of adequate funding will ultimately hurt the entire community. A community that makes education of tomorrow’s leaders a top priority attracts new business and residents.
Be sure to vote NO at your polls on Tuesday, Sept. 12. A NO vote will send the budget back to the School Board to work out a compromise that can be approved by all voters.
Karyl Condit
Farmington
President Obama’s sometime economic advisor, Princeton’s Prof. Krueger did a study about the correlation between expenditure and school performance. He did not conclude that there wasn’t any. He could not find evidence that there was.
Doesn’t matter. The Vending Machine Theory of Education (money goes in, education comes out) is endlessly and thoughtlessly repeated as established common sense.
^ John Frary not disputing the assessment numbers … just bringing President Obama into the discussion and tossing his folksy witticisms. Vote NO on Tuesday. Enough is enough.