News and Views

Look back for years in the Town Annual Report and you will see listed at the bottom of the Warrant Articles the recommendations of the varied boards and committees in town. Due to new regulations this now must have passage by you the voter to have the right to see the votes of the boards and committees placed after individual warrant articles. It does not take away your right to ask at the meeting how the boards and committees votes on each warrant. You have every right at the Annual meeting to approach the microphone and ask how the boards voted. Transparency in government is imperative.

What is the point? Why is it so important to see the votes of your elected officials? Simple, if the vote was close that tells you there must be a good reason for that and you should question the board and ask why the warrant was close to not being recommended. Ask to hear from the dissenting voter on the board or committee. On the flip side if the board votes unanimously every time you should be questioning why?? Warren Fargo, Bow School Board member could not have asked the question better during the last school board meeting. Fargo asked how many dissenting votes have there been in the past 5 years on the school board?

Trust me, his question was never answered. Not because anyone in the room did not have the answer, but because they did not want to admit the answer. There have been little to no dissenting votes! What does this mean?

As a whole the School Board all thinks alike. That is not how I want any board in town to operate. That tells me that not all residents views are being represented. The School Board members went on to say that they come with different views but once they debate and discuss they all come to the same consensus?? What does that mean? No one has an independent view and can stand up for that view? That the members can all be persuaded to think whatever other board members want them to think?

It is high time we clean house on the School Board and have members that represent the diverse schools of thought that make up our community. It is good to see dissenting votes that tells me that all views are at least being put on the table and some serious debate on the issues of the town and schools  are happening.

Lastly, I want to send out a huge thank you to all who came out on Wednesday, Feb. 11, to the budget hearing. The room was filled, I applaud all who came and educated themselves on the upcoming school budget. It was great to hear so many questions and comments.

Mark your calendar! Friday, March 13th for the Annual School Meeting at BHS at 7:00 PM.

In the Bunker,
Cindy Martin

So, why would I consider lowering the budget? Here are a few figures that are my basis for this. The total budget is $23,813,072. We have a student population of 1640. That amounts to $14,520.16 per student! It is costing us more to send a child to the Bow schools than to send a student to the NH Tech, with room and board!

As you well know the School Board is the only entity in town that can reduce a line item but here are a few ideas of where those reductions could be:

1) Reduce one 1st and one 2nd grade teacher
2) Reduce one Assistant Principal from the Elementary and Memorial School
3) Do not add the new Stipend positions – these include: Destination Imagination Coaches, Woodworking Club, NH First

Why reduce in the 1st and 2nd grade? The enrollment numbers show we can do this and still stay within the NH Department of Education guidelines of no more than 25 students in a classroom.

Same for the Assistant Principal, we have a rapidly declining enrollment in the Elementary school. We have highly qualified Principals in both the Elementary and Memorial School who can handle the operations at their given school. They can share the assistant between the schools.

The stipends are not necessary for co-curricular in the economy we are presently in. I am by no means discrediting these programs. They are valuable programs, but to have the taxpayers pay for them is just wrong. We started paying for these programs and the list is just increasing, yet there are programs that are staffed by teachers that are totally volunteer. Such as the Chess Club. How long until that club is also looking to pay a stipend to the teacher? Some of the Destination Imagination coaches are parents, so in reality we are paying our parents to be volunteers for their own children. My proposal would be to lower the budget by $400,000.

Looking at this in a macro sense, the school budget has historically been overestimated on the expense side and underestimated on the revenue side.

Here is an example: The Medicaid line in the revenue side is  grossly underestimated. The 2007-08 estimate was $70,000 when the actual reimbursement was $136,786. The 2008-09 estimate was $70,000 we are still in this year so the actual figure is not yet available. But the estimate for the 2009-10 proposed is for $80,000??

On the expense side the Health Insurance budgeted figure was $2,928,132 and we saw a turn back of $311,804 a 9.62% overestimated figure! Yes this is great news – but keep the following in mind… This leaves a large undesignated fund balance at the end of the year. Did you know that all of the fund could be spent if the school board chose to? We can only control the bottom line. If we give them the money they have every right to spend it. And they do spend some of that money, that is what we call Christmas in June!

Bottom line and one thing to keep in mind at all times when the budget is mentioned. Increased spending equals higher taxes!!

In the Bunker,
Cindy Martin

This is the first installment of a column I hope will keep you informed and interested in happenings in Bow. I must present my disclaimer to say I am speaking here solely as a taxpayer and resident, all comments and opinions are my own.

With that being said I would like to tackle an interesting concept concerning the recent bus warrant article.

The School Board never had any intention of implementing the decrease of two buses in Bow.

This was all a ploy to get parents upset concerning the budget. A redherring if you will.

The next step in their ill thought out process will be to say that if the operating budget is lowered then the first thing the School Board will have to cut is the buses. There’s the “gotcha”.

Why do I consider the bus warrant an ill thought out proposition? How could they have not taken into consideration putting children on the road walking up to a quarter mile to a bus stop in 15-degree weather when the school policy states that there will be no outdoor recess if the temperature is below 20 degrees? And the ages of these children could range from 5 on up. I ask you who now allows their 5-year old to walk a quarter mile from their home unescorted? At this time of year, the high snow banks and the height of these children puts them in direct danger on the road would it make sense to you to put these children on the road? Or course not. But I defer to the so-called experts (The School Board) that thought this would be the best way to save you the taxpayer $40,000! Exactly as I said, they never intended to implement this ill thought out decision.

I warn you, do not have tunnel vision. We can lower the presented budget and still operate with the buses as they are now and keep athletics. It’s politics in Bow as usual, why would you be surprised?

They have held our tax dollars hostage along with our children for years. Game on! How many times have we heard the same old song and dance. Last year it was the athletics that would have to be cut if the budget were reduced. Yes that is our friendly School Board directing a sucker punch right at you! To paraphrase President Obama in his inauguration speech. “It is time to make unpleasant decisions”. With a declining enrollment in our schools how can the cost of operation still be climbing? Over 70% of the cost of operating our schools is tied into personnel. So simple logic dictates that personnel needs to be reduced. And where exactly should the decreases be?

Stay tuned for the column next week to answer that question. Remember if they can’t discredit the message they will attack the messenger.

In the Bunker, Cindy Martin