Hebron Dollars & Sense

So, on Monday night Siminski made his first presentation to the RHAM BOE for the FY. Like the Hebron BOE, of course the increase is over 50% salaries. Again, I think this is sickening considering what is going on all over the country right now. But anyway--Siminski presented three options:

2.52% option would basically continue to provide services to students at current levels. The supt. pointed out that there were many desired items that they were not asking for, in light of the current economy. Those being: additional staff to reduce class sizes; an additional reading teacher at the middle school; increased funding for textbooks, supplies, and something called "students records", which I beleive is a tracking software program ($17,000).

Reduction to 1.49% would require further reductions in funding for supplies, books, etc., as well as administrator concessions (I say go for those right away!)

Reduction to 0% would entail still further reductions for supplies, books, etc., as well as some staffing cuts which Siminiski warned would increase class sizes. Also, golf, indoor track, and one other sport (field hockey?) would no longer be funded. Parents would be required to raise $ to keep them going.

However, at the end of his presentation, Siminski said that he'd just found out insurance rates would be increasing less than he thought, for a savings of $100,000. He said that he would rework the budget, taking this new info into consideration, for the next meeting. (March 1, I believe?)

There weren't many people there--the only person who commented was from Andover. No one from Hebron. Come on people--we need to go to these meetings!

Thank you, Taxpayer, for the summary of the meeting! These summaries are very important to share with Hebron residents.

It's Great that They Found 100 G's In Savings ,But What did They do With It??

ADDED IT BACK To The Budget Proposal Instead Of Just Deleting It

TYPICAL Of A Educrat & Just Plain Ignorant Of Reality, He Knows He Ain't Gonna Get His Whole Proposal In Finality, Sew He Pads It With A 100 G's Of Back Up

Sad & Pathetic Buracratic Manuever/Shennanagan that His Is Using I$

Posting Gonna Be Spotty, Comp Is Cranky

ADK, NO WAY, NO BUDGET!!

ALL THE WAY WITH HDK FOR ALL!!

Is that what he did? I had to leave before the end of the meeting. I read the JI article, but I couldn't figure out what the heck they were talking about. Pretty poor writing. But the increase for the "what we'd really like to get" choice went form 2.52 to 2.09 it looks like. So it sounded like he made a decrease somehow?

A question--on the home page there are a number of issues flashing across the top to the right. One of them cites a 5.48% increase in the RHAM budget. Where does this number come from?

It's actually a 5.58% increase; I've asked the webmaster to slow down the "refresh" rate on the Newsflashes because it's hard to read the information in the time allowed before it leads to the next Newsflash.

By the way, we will be using the "Newsflash" feature to immediately let readers know of any new important information.

To answer your specific question, and indeed it is complicated:

RHAM is currently considering a 2.52% budget (AKA "spending") increase.

However, Hebron is sending more students, as compared to the number of students Andover and Marlborough will be sending next year. The RHAM budget is divided among the three towns based on the number of students each town sends. Therefore, the RHAM budget for each town will always be fluid because their "share" depends on how many students they send to the school that particular budget year.

Because Hebron is sending more students next year to RHAM than we did last year, Hebron's proportionate responsibility for the total RHAM budget goes from 52.81% of the FY 2009-10 budget to 54.14% of the FY 2010-11 budget. So the spending increase of 2.52% plus the proportionate increase of 1.33% of the total budget equates to a 5.58% RHAM increase to Hebron residents. For Andover and Marlborough residents, they will see a proportionate DECREASE in their share of the RHAM budget.

I have been advising readers that EVEN if RHAM comes in at a 0% spending increase, there will still be a tax increase to Hebron residents because we are sending more students to RHAM next year. In all fairness, when you vote at the polls, you should be voting on the proposed RHAM spending increase. The proportional increase of Hebron students attending RHAM is just a fact of life. It also emphasizes why RHAM (at least for Hebron residents) needs to come in at a 0% spending increase to minimize the tax increase for Hebron residents.

Ahh... one more time that the writing is on the wall: the big spenders in Marlborough could pass the RHAM budget at almost any cost because the burden will, one more time, fall on Hebron's shoulders.

Andover and Hebron need to partner together for that 0% spending increase to offset the Marlborough "big spenders" vote. Remember that over the years, Hebron and Andover have partnered, but could not out-vote our big spending neighbors. Marlborough's per capita income exceeds Hebron's, and FAR exceeds Andover's.

Keep in mind that this proportional increase in Hebron students going to RHAM next year is all part of the "bubble" of students that began in 2004, and as I've written on another post, our proportion of the RHAM budget will continue to increase over the next 5 years.

After that, there will be a lot of empty classrooms as student population is significantly declining, and we are having very little luck in attracting new families with children ("customers") to Hebron due to the high taxes.

Which is why I laugh when I hear the "rumors" that the Hebron Administration is still talking about building a new school. For who? The ghosts of Christmas past?