Hebron Dollars & Sense

Word is that a member of the Board of Education is conducting his own exit poll. While town administrators have confirmed that this can be done, they have stressed that this poll has NOT been approved by the Board of Education, the Board of Selectmen, or the Board of Finance. This is a single BOE member acting on his own.

The last poll was sanctioned by the BOS and the town. Most of the voters had no problem filling in the exit poll sheet because there was a confidence level that the (1) sheets would be handled properly and placed in a locked box and (2) the count would be supervised and only completed by town employees.

This confidence level is GONE with the current exit poll. Here, (if the rumors are true), we have a "biased" member of the Board of Education conducting a poll. What planet do these folks live on? Does anyone believe this would be credible poll with valid numbers -- are they even using a LOCKED BOX?

It would depend on how/when the poll is conducted. If it is only during the morning hours while parents drop their kids off to school, they won't necessarily get a fair cross section of voters

Just voted at 3:30, and Allaben was still there.

What concerns me is the open container they are using for the exit poll sheets. Since they are not signed, how would we know if they are originals? The first poll slips went into a LOCKED box. This poll has not "controls or protections against fraud." Who will count them? ... when? ... where?

One woman I talked to did not know it was not an exit poll run by the town. She was surprised there was one set up.

The last question was written so poorly that I couldn't answer it. It said something to the effect of:

"Should the BOF add money to the budget to replace the C&E, Music and Spanish funding?"

There are so many problems with this question that I couldn't answer it.

First, the BOF does not have line item authority to mandate the spending of dollars in the BOE budget. So how can they tell them how to spend any money that would be added (or subtracted)?

Second, when was it communicated that these programs had been cut? I only heard rumors and threats. I never saw a programatic budget that indicated what my education dollars were buying, I merely get to see a headcount/facilities/services budget that tells who is receiving money, not what we are paying them to do.

Lastly, if we had a bifurcated budget, we could address the town budget separately from the education budget and be able to manage these questions in a more directed fashion. This would make any exit poll far more actionable and would make the referendum process more efficient.