Budget Commentaries
“People in the private sector who have had their wages and salaries frozen have every right to expect similar direction in the public sector” ( Click here for the full editorial)
The budget process is winding down and there are more budget meetings this week before the warrant is finalized. The excellent editorial in January 30, 2009 Citizen helps highlight the hard realities of the budget process for towns and school districts in 2009-2010. In the words of the newspaper "There might be program expansions and projects that are desirable or timely in the eyes of some people but are they affordable on the part of many? Probably not." We would hope that the BoS and the School Board take public input seriously and continue to find ways to reduce cost. The future has a lot of unknowns. People are losing their jobs, businesses are closing (
Can we really justify $450,000 for a soccer field? Can we really justify pay increases for all school employees at the same level (5.7%) as the collective bargaining agreement and asking those of us ( the vast majority of taxpayers) who work in the private sector who are struggling to pay for it? No its not...
Town budget “draft” shows small increase of .22%. Good job so far.
Budget Commentary Part 3
The BoS met 1/29/2009 in a “workshop” and reviewed warrant articles and related budget items. As of this writing, the still very rough budget is approximately $9,462,771 which is .22% above last year. Good job, we think. This does not include appropriations in petitioned warrant articles some clarification from the Town Clerk. It does include eliminating the States Landing study. As per Carter Terenzini, assistance from the Human Services department was approximately $10,000 for January 2009, double what it was for the past two Januaries. Monies were recommended to be moved ($7,500) from one account to Human Services. We think that is a good thing. It reflects the troubling and difficult times we live in and the fact that not all of Moultonborough is affluent. What doesn’t reflect the troubled times is the appropriation of approximately $100,000 in new tax dollars....
(of a total cost of about $330,000) to partially fund a new soccer field next to the Lion’s Club. Selectmen Charest was not in favor of changing the meaning of the
The ABC will present their report to the Selectmen February 5th at 5pm in a workshop. Selectmen meeting will follow at 7pm.
MCA
Budget Commentary Part 2
We’re No.1!
Sometimes, being No.1 is not such a good thing. The NH Dept. of Education website (NHDOE) has quite a collection of data and reports on schools and school districts throughout
There are 39 of those and the winner is….. Moultonboro with the highest cost per pupil 34% higher than the statewide average ($15,717. vs. $10,304).
As a comparison, Gov. Wentworth in Wolfeboro is $11,034 or 29% less than Moultonboro. In Moultonboro, our student to teacher ratio is 9.2, or about 27% less than the statewide average of 12.6. We are 21st in all of NH out of 162. Of the 20 schools/districts with lower student to teacher ratios, all are much smaller than Moultonboro; the largest has only half the enrollment of Moultonboro. Gov. Wentworth is 70th with a ratio of 11.0 and Interlakes is 103rd with a ratio of 12.0.
MCA......
Budget Commentary Part 1
The Advisory Budget Committee has made its final recommendations to the School Board (Click here for all the documents). The final budget amounts to an increase in spending from last year of $256,476 or 1.89%. This is approximately $150,000 less than originally proposed due to additional cuts proposed by the Superintendent. The administrators offered to take a salary increase of only 3% The School Board than made the only modification to the budget by proposing the administrators receive a pay raise of 4% in appreciation for all they do for the school district.
In the upcoming days we will present much more on the school and town budget in an effort to keep citizens informed.
MCA......
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