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Welcome to the NEW Atkinson Reporter! Under new management, with new resolve.

The purpose of this Blog is to pick up where the Atkinson Reporter has left off. "The King is dead, Long live the King!" This Blog is a forum for the discussion of predominantly Atkinson; Officials, People, Ideas, and Events. You may give opinion, fact, or evaluation, but ad hominem personal attacks will not be tolerated, or published. The conversation begun on the Atkinson Reporter MUST be continued!

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Thursday, November 18, 2010

Report on the SAU Budget public hearing

ARTICLE SUBMISSION PLEASE

Report on the SAU Budget public hearing.

by Mark Acciard

For those of you who were unaware, and I am guessing that is most of you, the SAU held their budget public hearing tonight.

How this works is that the two school boards; Timberlane and Hampstead, both approve the Superintendent's budget for the SAU, then the SAU has it's own budget public hearing, voting to move the budget forward, the next time you will hear about this budget is when we get to school district deliberative session in February. It will show up in the Timberlane budget as a single line item for 75% of the $1.3 million SAU budget. The other 25% is Hampstead's portion.

As I told Mr. LaSalle and Mr. Stokinger at the meeting tonight, Thank you! They prepared a very tight budget for the SAU for the coming year. $1.3million to service the 13 employees of the SAU. As expected health insurance is up significantly, as a re other benefits. Administrators will receive a 2% raise this year. What I found most disappointing, other than the lack of public participation( I was the only member of the public there until Mr. Artus arrived, then there were two.) was the sad fact that not one member of the school district budget committee felt the need to attend. Granted, I asked all the questions about what was in various line items that they should have been there to ask, but not even the chair felt the need to find out what would be presented to them as a single line item later on. As this was a public hearing, it is the last chance to change or question that budget, and the budget committee obviously felt due diligence was beyond their ken.

When will we ever have a school district budget committee that does not see it's role as "selling the superintendent's budget" but in following state budget law, and preparing the budget?

November 18, 2010 12:02 AM

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

When the public gets involved.

How are we supposed to know this stuff? As an ordinary citizen, I don't know when these hearings are being held! They do not properly announce school or town meetings.

We have no minutes posted by the selectmen, and they do not like it when we ask for information.

Not until we raise awareness will this change.

How can we do this effectively?

Anonymous said...

VOTE out selectmen that won't post minutes or enforce the policies/ RSA”S of the town. FIRE the TOWN ADMINISTRATOR, if he can’t do the job, and pay attention to what’s going on in the town office. You balance your checkbook every month don’t you? These guys can break your bank. It’s that simple.

Anonymous said...

There are several places to learn when these kinds of meetings are held:

1) http://danvilledelivery.wordpress.com/

2) http://timberlaneschools.forumsland.com/timberlaneschools-forum-1.html

But you DO have to be alert not to miss them!!

Anonymous said...

It should all be on the town website.

Why has nothing changed? What did that technology committee do anyway?

Anonymous said...

Quote
"How are we supposed to know this stuff? As an ordinary citizen, I don't know when these hearings are being held! They do not properly announce school or town meetings.
"

Puhleeze. Did you miss your personal invitation? Nobody came to your door to tell you about the meeting? Try reading a paper, or visiting town hall.

You're out-of-touch, and then spin your own cluelessness into being someone else's fault. Pathetic.

You wouldn't have gone to the meeting even if you HAD known about it. The whining, misinformation and unfounded speculation on this blog is astounding.

To think that some, maybe even most of the bozos here vote makes me very fearful for our country's future.

PS: I am not referring to all here as bozos. But from reading the posts, it is clear there are many.

MAcciard said...

8:59am
All True, Question is why do we accept this below standard treatment from people we elect to serve us?

MAcciard said...

The really sad thing is that on average 160 people or so will come to town meeting every year, to debate warrant articles and the town budget, yet you can't get that many from 4 towns to the school district meeting, and the decisions made there account for 80% of your taxes.

Anonymous said...

If every blogger that is discontent enough to complain about our poor SAU tactics. Be there.
I have a suggestion to offer.

I plan to be at the deliberative session. If every one can possibly
show up for that meeting it would be a time for us to be heard.

Remember there is power in numbers.
as you have witnessed from the SAU.

We can all complain, but sad to say
no one that matters is listning.

Please take the time and energy to make an effort to be there.

Residents do not have a lot of down time and it will be an effort to be there but how else can we stop this runaway group.

Who knows what can happen, but it
won't be a shoe-in if, we get out there. Stand up and be heard.

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