Kids First Monadnock!

Here they go again.

The Monadnock School Taxpayers Association is up to its scare tactics with the people it claims it was charged to represent.

Group members have done all the work for you and leave you with the sense that they are truly a righteous group of people with only your interests at hand.

I, for one, and a good deal of others, disagree.

Let’s suppose their numbers relating to the tax increase in the Sunday March 4 letter to the editor are valid.

1. Enrollment decline never means the costs are less. If you have 25 students or 20 students, the class still needs to be taught.

You need the teacher, the aides, the building, the heat, the lights, the insurance, the food, etc.

2. They want you to pass the default budget again. That is, as stated in their letter, $900,000 less than the proposed $34,595,273 operating budget.

That is 2.6 percent less than proposed. That will not make their purported $624 Fitzwilliam increase on a $200,000 home disappear.

3. Taxpayers have never been asked to pick up the full cost of out-of-district students attending the Monadnock Community Connections program.

The sending school districts will pay their way. If there was less bad press, there would be more involvement by parents and more students would attend.

The director based her budget on having 45 students from our district, not 16. This was repeated time and again in budget committee and school board sessions, but the taxpayers group representatives chose to ignore or overlook that fact.

4. Article 3, the support staff contract was negotiated in good faith with the school district. The staff is beginning the task of carrying a larger burden of their health costs.

The change is the first step toward a better situation for the school district and the taxpayers. Change does not always happen in one fell swoop. They deserve this contract.

Here’s an idea. The tireless energy of the taxpayers group may better serve their self proclaimed “charges” (you the taxpayers), by channeling that energy in changing the education funding system at the state level.

Why don’t they work with the people in Concord?

They could also get together with the county commissioners.

Shane Maxfield (whose letter to the editor in Saturday’s Keene Sentinel makes perfect sense) could offer them some of his ideas.

A utilitarian jail, with modern features that would be architecturally efficient and safe should cost less.

I am a member of the Monadnock Regional School District Budget Committee.

I have listened all year to both sides, not just at budget committee meetings, but also school board, finance committee, facilities committee, community relations committee and default budget committee meetings.

I am also a charter member of Kids First Monadnock, a group of concerned residents that wants to see every child get the best education possible in this district, while remaining safe, comfortable and in the hands of quality, caring teachers, aides and staff. Your children deserve it and you have the right to expect it.

Please vote on March 13. Vote to support your schools and the future guardians of our society.

Elect people who care about children and education.

Look for the green Kids First Monadnock flyer. It tells the real story and it’s not so scary.

JIM ELLS
P.O. Box 459
West Swanzey