Hebron Dollars & Sense

There was a good turnout .. and great mix of people (a baby to retirees). The chair of the BOF went through a powerpoint presentation that several of us sat through before. It was their recommended budget and they set the stage with an explanation of the budget process, their goals (fiscally responsible) and to present a budget with a ZERO PERCENT EXPENDITURE INCREASE. (Guess they fell short on that goal!) He again stated they could not control line items ... but you could hear grumblings that this was a "public hearing" and anything was fair game to question or make a statement (pro or con).

The chair also stated that "in their opinion" asking a cap of 1.5% increase from everyone was "fair and reasonable". WRONG!! He is comparing apples to oranges. How they can submit the budget as it stands is amazing .. the 7th slide shows the FY2010-2011 Budget Overview and most of those seated around me commented on the BOE allocation of the "budget pie" and complained about slide 8 which showed a decrease in open space and a flat figure for CIP.

The explanation about WPCA (Water Pollution Control Authority) i.e., "sewers" was totally inadequate. The audience was more confused "AFTER" the explanation to a question of "WHERE ARE THESE FUNDS" from someone in town who is responsible for collecting these monies. He politely asked this question at least twice .. once and received a convuluted explanation from the chair, and asked it again and the chair deferred to the the acting director. Apparently, they are in a "deferred status" and have been pro-rated over the life of the loan. I have no idea what all this meant and anyone can correct me and I encourage you to do so. No one understood where these funds are in the overall budget, are they collecting interesting, where are they being accrued.

Interesting comments.

An individual asked if we could "outsource/contract" with local businesses for some of the town services

a retiree asked what does she get for her tax dollar since the town doesn't provide road service - not even snow plowing(?) because they must be in a special taxing district

one young man stood to explain that we should all be supporting each other and everything that we like about Hebron and brought up the fact that he thought the tax increase (mentioned 170+ dollars) was minimal

PTA president spoke in support of the BOE budget

families (few) spoke in support of ADK

others spoke agains the BOE budget and the inclusion of ADK

George Alden asked why the petition against ADK was not mentioned ... he also stated that many wanted to sign but felt there would be retaliation

Dominic Marino made excellent points and questioned why no one was interviewed for the curriculum directors position IF they planned to keep it (we have several highly qualified individuals in town).

The chair after another speaker or two finally acknowledge the receipt of the petition and said that it was posted on the town site for viewing. He also stated there should never be a fear of retaliation when it involved town politics ... we all are entitled to our opinions.

Excellent questions/comments from everyone. I believe it was informative for those who were encouraged to attend because of the flyers. Kudos to everyone ... UNFORTUNATELY, the BOF stands by its decision and will NOT revert to their original request of the BOE for a zero percent increase!!

I had to leave early. I did have a question about the K teacher who gave her name, Hebron school and remarked she had 16 years of experience. Does she own property in town, does she live in town? Rules should be followed and only those who own at least a $1000 worth of property or live in town are allowed to vote. Correct me if I am wrong ... and let me know where this individual resides.

Thanks, Mombert, for starting this thread. The teacher you refer to is Diane Rees. She is one of our $90,000 + kindergarten teachers (including benefits), I believe. She spoke about the "challenges" of teaching kindergarten within a half-day format. I won't even go there...She does not reside in Hebron. I think her hubby is some kind of on-site administrator for a private school in another town, and they live on school grounds. I "think" that anyone has the right to speak at a public meeting, but she does not have the right to vote? Someone correct me if I am wrong.

I am very proud of everyone who had the nerve to stand up to speak. (I chickened out myself). I thought that everyone did an excellent job of stating the facts and keeping emotions out of it.

Re the sewer issue: from what I could gather from Mr. Hazel's nebulous explanation last night and at the earlier BOF meeting, he was referring to sewer assessments in the amount of $8,000 charged to every household within the sewer district. People are required to pay these off in installments. What he said at the last meeting was that "someone" had not kept track of the assessments that were paid in full as people moved from their homes. For example when I bought my house within the sewer district, the former owners paid off their entire bill. From what I understood the town, instead of removing that assessment from the rolls, was assuming that the money was still coming in in installments. So someone screwed up the bookkeeping, basically. A point that Hazel brought up last night, which I don't remember him mentioning before, was that the town still has outstanding bonds for the original work? This part wasn't made clear, so someone please clarify if you have more knowledge of the situation.

A couple of points re public comments:

I was struck by the mom who said she had two preschool little ones, one child in K, and one in first grade. Yet she didn't believe that the BOE had supplied sufficient evidence in support of ADK.

Dominic Marino was no-holds-barred, and should be commended for his courage to say things that lots of folks are probably thinking. Among the issues I remember:

He questioned the need for a full-time supt. in our small district.
He challenged the supt.'s large salary, comparing it to the salary of the supt. in a large, city school district.

And then his darling little girl, Seraphina, came to the mic. She is a fifth-grader in the gifted program at Hebron El. She had a petition, signed by students, asking that ADK be cut so that Kate Maupin's position could be saved. It was awesome.

One other comment that stood out for me. Gayle Mulligan stood up in support of the existing budget. She said that we needed to trust the BOE to look out for our interests, and trust that they knew what was best for our schools, or something to that effect. It's disappointing that, no matter how often we try to point out the lack of transparency of the BOE and the supt., no matter how we try to highlight decisions that are obviously not being made in the best interests of the students and the town, intelligent people like Ms. Mulligan are still willing to leave the decisions to the admin. and the board.

You are correct that Mrs. Rees was the kindergarten teacher who spoke. My understanding is the same as yours, that she lives out of town (at the Pomfret Academy?) but anyone has the right to speak at these hearings - not just voters. If it were restricted to just eligible voters, then the eloquent young Seraphina would not have been permitted to speak either. I am not sure whether or not Mrs. Rees has $1,000 of assessed property in town, but I had no problem with her speaking on the benefits of ADK, and the newer requirements being asked of kindergartners.

It appeared to me that the meeting was being video recorded. It was nice to see such a large turnout, especially compared to prior years.

It sounded to me that the issue with the sewer assessments was in fact a bookkeeping error that had been accumulating for at least a couple years. Since we operate our budget on a cash basis, but have to account for the liabilities on an accrual basis, the bookkeeping error has effectively meant that by not reducing the anticipated assessments according to the revised schedule - which got accelerated due to folks re-financing - we effectively were overstating anticipated income side of the ledger. So, we should have had shown bookeeping surplusses due to the accelerated repayments, but then correspondingly showed a reduction in the future income stream. The question that was not answered was whether or not we did show these surplusses, if so was the money segregated and/or was it spent elsewhere?

I was impressed with the comments/answers by our new Town Manager - on her second day of service. Not that the questions were that difficult, but her presentation was confident, direct, knowledgeable, and helpful.

Overall, it seemed to me that despite the fact that the BOF chair indicated over and over that it was not up to the BOF to determine how the money got spent, the majority of the comments were focussed on the BOE - which is as Willie Sutton said, where the money is. The comments seemed to me to be running perhaps 5-2 against ADK, but overall they seemed to me to be 3-1 in favor of the overall budget number. Did anyone keep actual track of what the numbers were, for those who specifically addressed both the issues?

I welcomed the comments about exit polls and/or advisory questions.

I hope the woman in the retirement development takes her question to the BOS, as suggested by the response from the chair. It is not unreasonable for retirees, who don't get much of any services from the town, to ask for a lower mill rate. I don't know the economics of how this would be implemented, but it merits further discussion.

I don't agree with the flat funding of the CIP and cutting the Open Space. I would much rather see an extra half mil tax increase dedicated to preserving this.

The BOE has not formally decided what they will be cutting - but I sincerely hope that they acknowledge the general feeling of the community - at least to discuss what different citizens referred to as "the elephant in the room" and "the sacred cow". Kathy Shea has been saying for months that this issue should be addressed, without support from the other Board members. As a BOE member, she has the right to address this issue under budget discussions. The rest of the board - whether they ultimately agree with her on the issue or not - should be encouraged to discuss their position.

I don't want to abandon ADK entirely, but I would much rather see it placed on hold again if it means other established, beneficial programs have to be cut.

The curriculum director and superintendent's positions should be merged - or they should consider the suggestion of one citizen who offered the idea of giving ten senior teachers an extra $1,000 or so, to review the already in place curriculum, cost ten grand instead of $100K plus for a curriculum director. This is the kind of creative ideas that should be reviewed by the BOE publicly, to save the C&E and music programs and keep class sizes where they are.

Dominic you did a terrific job. He always backs up his statements with facts. Obviously a great parent to have encouraged his child to speak publicly and to fill in a petition to keep the C&E teacher in the school. Lessons learned outside the classroom will last a lifetime.

I still do not know if the 0.7 percent music teach retired or was replaced? It is difficult weeding through the information placed "out there" by the school.

"The BOE has not formally decided what they will be cutting - but I sincerely hope that they acknowledge the general feeling of the community - at least to discuss what different citizens referred to as "the elephant in the room" and "the sacred cow". Kathy Shea has been saying for months that this issue should be addressed, without support from the other Board members. As a BOE member, she has the right to address this issue under budget discussions. The rest of the board - whether they ultimately agree with her on the issue or not - should be encouraged to discuss their position" auntie

With all due respect to your suggestion, Ms Shea could not even get a second to the motion to discuss the recently vacated Curriculum Director position. Ms Shea CAN NOT do it alone. The Curriculum Director was part of a consent agenda - no discussion. I encourage you to attend a RHAM BOE meeting to witness frank and open discussion of the issues at hand. The members of that Board discuss the merits of issues with each other in front of the public and then vote. Sometimes they even take public comment and respond to it as individuals with personal thoughts.

As you rightly point out, the BOE has not formally decided what they will be cutting from the budget you are about to vote on. What do you think about that?