Archive for the 'Taxes' Category

Why Does A Manchester Radio Show Care About Monadnock?

Published by admin on September 7, 2008 in School budget and Taxes. 0 Comments

About halfway through this August 7th “NH Taxpayer Radio Show” founding member of the Monadnock School Taxpayer Association Ed Naile (not a Monadnock School Taxpayer himself) and MSTA Web Master Jane Aitken (also not a Mondnock School Taxpayer) mock Judge Tucker’s decision to proclaim an emergency in our distict.

Further, in perhaps a sneak peak of things to come, Mr. Naile suggests if the contract passes on Tuesday, that we should all vote “No” to everything next March at the town level. Essentially encouraging us to pit Firefigher against Teacher.

Who are these people and why are they so interested in our schools?

Fighting the Lies of the MSTPA

Published by admin on September 4, 2008 in Taxes, Teacher/Staff Contracts, Uncategorized and Voting. 0 Comments

Judy Clark says it all in a LTE today.

 To The Sentinel:

I am a resident of the Monadnock Regional School District.

I have been researching the issues regarding the special election to make an educated decision.

As part of my research I went to the Web site of the Monadnock School Taxpayers Association (MSTA) and was appalled by the lack of logical consistency, the half truths and the lies the group is promoting.

The group rails against early retirement. If the new contract passes, early retirement will no longer be offered after June 2009.

The budgetary obligation will then decrease each year until it is all gone in 2016. The group misrepresents the financial aspects of not approving the contract in regards to early retirement.

If the contract is passed, the district will save about $2 million. In other words, not passing the new contract will cost the district more money.

As regards the lawsuit by the town of Sullivan pertaining to the legality of early retirement, the MSTA Web states, “A provision in the new contract says that if the new contract passes, the lawsuit is moot.”

This provision does not exist, thus the statement by the MSTA is a lie. The bottom line: If the contract is defeated then early retirement will remain in effect

The MSTA has also stated its opposition to the so-called evergreen clause and the new state law requiring an evergreen clause in contracts with public employees.

As the contract was negotiated and ratified prior to the enacting of the law, the new law would not affect the proposed contract.

If this contract is defeated, the next contract would have to have an evergreen clause as mandated by the state.

In the past, the MSTA has been adamant that teachers pay more of their health care costs.

Currently teachers pay 10 percent of the cost of the insurance policy. If the contract is passed, then over the life of the contract the teacher contribution will increase to 20 percent — exactly what the MSTA has stated it wants.

If the contract is defeated, the teachers stay at 10 percent.

As far as changing insurance carriers, the MSTA fails to disclose that during the time it is talking about, the district saved several hundred thousand dollars by renegotiating the health care contracts.

It also fails to state that all five unions in the school administrative unit must agree to a change in carriers, it is not at the whim of Monadnock district teachers.

Also last March, the MSTA recommended approval of the support staff contract, which contains the same language as the teacher contract regarding changing carriers.

In summary, the MSTA has made clear in the past that to support a teacher contract the new contract must get rid of early retirement, not have an evergreen clause and teachers must shoulder more of the cost of health insurance. The new contract does these things. If the MSTA is successful in helping defeat the new contract, it ensures everything it is against stays in effect.

After reviewing all the data I could obtain, I recommend the voters of the Monadnock district ratify the new teacher contract, as it will benefit our students by helping ensure the district has an experienced, stable work force that knows and understands the needs of our students.

JUDY CLARK
95 Warmac Road
Swanzey

The way forward

Published by admin on March 6, 2008 in Editorial, Letter to the Editor, School budget, Taxes and Voting. 1 Comment

[From the Keene Sentinel Letters Page]

To the residents and voters of the Monadnock Regional School District:

I would prefer to write this as your average citizen, but some of my information comes from being an elected Swanzey member of the district budget committee for the last two years.

I don’t claim to know everything, but I can make an intelligent assessment of where we stand as a district.

Once again it is time to make decisions about education. On March 11, your vote counts as a step forward for the future of the children of this district or another as a step backward toward the abyss of failed education.

Forward steps are: “yes” votes for the operating budget, teachers and support staff contracts and maintenance articles.

These are all positive steps toward a better future in this district.

Backward steps are: “no” votes for the above, not bothering to vote or believing the blather of the Monadnock School Taxpayers Association .

What does that group think?

With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy:

If you think that 200-year-old, one-room historic schoolhouses on the corner in the woods of Richmond would work just fine, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.

If readin’, writin’ and ’rithmetic is all you need to get by-, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.

If you are living in the past, blaming former administrators and board members long gone for all our woes, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.

If you are arrogant, rude, conceited and domineering and your moral compass has gone awry, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.

If you don’t believe that anyone but you is right, even when issues have been settled democratically, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.

If you want to see the district lose accreditation, teachers, support staff, administrators, new residents and any hope of a decent educational opportunity for your children and grandchildren, you just might be a future member of the taxpayers association.

You get the picture. Don’t let the taxpayers association scare you into believing that the administration, school board members, budget committee members, teachers and others are lying, deceitful, malicious, money-grubbing lunatics.

On March 11, vote for a positive change in our district.

Vote “yes” on articles 1, 3, 4, 13 and others that you feel help provide the education to which our kids are entitled.

Vote for the candidates in your town who best exemplify the type of adult you wish your child will become.

Read the articles. Understand the articles. Realize that negotiations are an intrinsic part of the democratic process.

Most importantly — vote March 11.

JIM ELLS
Member
Monadnock Budget Committee
P.O. Box 459
West Swanzey

The MRSD Budget: What it means for you

Published by rmitchell on March 6, 2008 in School budget, Taxes and Voting. 3 Comments

How will the 2008 school budget will affect you?

Would you like to support the schools but worry about the tax impact? Have you read the recent letter to the editor claiming that taxes are going up 27.22% and that school spending is out of control? If so, read on. This could be the most important document you read before the election.

The information below lays out exactly how much the school district proposes to spend on its operating budget and other warrant articles, how much money will need to be raised from taxes, and how that breaks down for your town.

It also explains how some of the percentage increases you see out there can be misleading and why factors outside of the school’s control have added to the bottom line costs for taxpayers this year. Bottom line: If everything passes, the school’s spending will only increase by 6% this year. That includes the operating budget, teacher and staff contracts - the works.

Armed with a better understanding of what money must be raised and where it goes, you should be in a good position to make a decision. Passing a budget is an important first step toward maintaining our Middle/High School’s accreditation.

Q: How much is the proposed increase in the MRSD operating budget?
The proposed MRSD operating budget for 2008 is $31,852.333. It represents an increase of 2.96% - less than the rate of inflation for last year. The actual amount of the increase is $909,470.

Q: How much will spending increase if all warrant articles pass?
If all articles on the warrant pass the total increase in spending will come to about 6%.

There are several other warrants that will affect spending. These include the operating budget, the teacher and staff contracts and a warrant article to fund the roof repairs on several buildings. The proposed total of all of the spending on the warrant articles comes to $35,143,639.

Q: How much money must be raised from property taxes to pay for that?
If the operating budget and all warrant articles pass, the amount to be raised from taxes for the 2008/2009 school year will increase by 13.92%.

Q: How can a 6% increase in spending result in a 13.92% increase in the total amount of money that needs to be raised through taxes?
Clearly it’s not excessive school spending. This number is called the total amount to apportion and is equal to total expenses less revenues (grants) and state aid to education. The change is expressed as a percentage: To get it you divide the 2008 amount by the 2007 amount.

Three factors are at work here. Both revenue and state aid are down. The increase also reflects the tax impact of voters’ decision last fall to allow Surry to withdraw from the district. That’s not extra spending but a reapportionment of the costs Surry used to pay. Here is the breakdown:

  • The biggest chunk of the increase (more than half) comes from a large, one-time surplus that taxpayers benefitted from in their 2007 tax bill. As a result, tax bills went down dramatically last year. How dramatically? Sullivan’s school tax bill went down 23%. Gilsum’s went down 27%. Surry’s went down 36% (shown in the Tax Rate Impact table below, 2007/2008 column). This year that one-time surplus went away. Most of the surplus was associated with special education, a mostly unfunded mandate over which the district has little control. Unfortunately, the special education aid revenues are unpredictable. Last year revenues exceeded what was expected by $2.1 million. This year funding dropped back to normal levels. And costs went up.
  • 1.16% of the increase is required to make up for a reduction in state “adequacy” aid for Monadnock district towns. MRSD taxpayers are getting less back this year from the State of New Hampshire’s statewide property tax.
  • 4% of the total increase has nothing to do with this year’s budgets at all. It is the result of the voters’ decision last fall to allow Surry to withdraw from the school district. Surry’s withdrawal does not substantially change the cost of running the school district (the financial benefits of closing the Surry Elementary School were taken a few years ago.) The remaining towns in the district must now pick up Surry’s share of the costs.
  • The school budget and warrant articles make up the remainder.

Q: How much will this afffect the tax rate?
The overall tax rate for next year will rise 27.22% over the current year’s numbers. However, this number is a bit misleading. Read on.

Q: If the amount to be raised from taxes is up 13.92%, why would the tax rate go up by 27.22%?
Estimates can be calculated in different ways to imply different things. Last year taxpayers saw a huge decrease in the tax rate due to a one time increase in revenues. This year that support goes away. That makes this year’s budgets look larger.

The 27.22% number is skewed upward by the fact that taxpayers saw a huge one-time reduction in taxes in the 2007/2008 school budget year. If your taxes went down by 23% last year and the surplus goes away in the 2008/2009 school year, you start the year with a 23% increase even for a flat budget. This is what makes this year’s percentages appear much larger.

Here is a simple example of how percentages are skewed. Let’s say that last year’s budget was $100. Then someone gives you a one-time rebate (surplus) of $25. The total budget drops to $75.

In the next year, your budget costs return to normal. The budget increases by $25. If you look at the normal budget ($25 divided by the original $100 budget), the increase was 25%. But if you use the actual budget amount after the rebate as the basis the increase is a whopping 66% ($125 - $75 = $50 increase. $50/$75 you actually paid last year = 66%).

In this way, looking at the percentage increase of the 2008 tax rate over the 2007 numbers exaggerates the overall impact.

A more accurate way to look at the percentage increases would be to look at the average increase over the past two years. (See the two year average column in the table below).

Table 1

(Note: Roxbury’s percentage increase appears larger because it received a credit over the past two years to compensate for a previous overassessment. Those credits do not carry forward this year, making Roxbury’s increase appear proportionally larger.)

Q: Why do the tax rate changes vary so much between towns?
To determine what each town will pay one must calculate the estimated tax rate for each town. To know that you need to know how much of the total amount the district needs to be raised from taxes will be billed to your town (called apportionment).

It’s not an even split: Your town’s apportionment is based 50% on the number of students your town sends (called average daily membership, or ADM) and 50% on property valuations. Even small amounts in the ADM and valuation numbers can vastly change the tax rates for every town. The differences in tax rate change from one town to another can be substantial, as the wide variation in percentage increases/decreases for a given year show. These increases are often blamed on “out of control” spending but have nothing to do with spending. They have to do with how costs are apportioned between the towns.

Small changes in ADM or valuations can result in large changes in how costs are apportioned. Both the ADM and valuation numbers are set by the state. The school district has the preliminary valuation numbers but is still waiting for the ADM numbers to come in. The final assessed values as of April 1st will come from the state some time after that date. Therefore, the numbers below use ADM and valuation numbers that are a best estimates by the district, as are any other projections you might see from other sources.

Q: So what is the total bottom line impact?

Let’s look at Fitzwilliam as an example. In the chart above you’ll see that the district projects that Fitzwilliam’s tax rate for 2008 will increase by 26.3%. That comes to $3.19 per $1,000 in valuation over what residents paid in the current, 2007 school year (when the one-time surplus reduced taxes). That’s an increase of $638 on a house valued at $200,000, assuming that everything passes.

But don’t forget that Fitzwilliam taxpayers saw their tax rate decrease by 16.34% in the current year. The two-year average increase is 5.66%, or just 2.83% per year. If you factor out the tax impact of the Surry withdrawal (4%), which is not part of this budget cycle but something voters approved last year, the increase related to school revenues and budgets increased 1.66%, or an average of .83% a year for the last two years.

Here is how those numbers translate into real dollar tax increases for each year. 2007 is the current tax year (2007/2008). The 2008 tax year coming up (2008/2009 school year), when the surplus disappeared.

table-2.jpg

Again, the total increase in tax rates does not reflect a large increase in spending by the district. These numbers reflect a moderate increase in expenditures, a large decrease in revenues, decreased state aid, and a 4% increase due to the Surry withdrawal. The huge surplus last year makes the increase look larger. Because the surplus was a one-time event, the increase over two years provides a more reasonable view of the trend over time.

Are taxes going go to up? Yes. But in the big picture, the overall increase isn’t as large as voters may have been lead to believe. And it’s certainly not due to runaway spending.

Given the scope of the issues that need to be addressed at the schools, the fact that the school has suffered five years of default budgets and two years of not funding a teacher or staff contract, is a 2.96% operating budget increase and a 6% overall increase in spending for all warrant articles - including teacher and staff contracts - too much to ask?

Make your decision at the polls on March 11.

Legal challenge costs taxpayers money

Published by admin on February 21, 2008 in Lawsuits and Taxes. 0 Comments

 

The Monadnock Taxpayer’s Association’s core group of agitators is at it again, this time filing a complaint in Concord that’s racking up legal bills for the Monadnock Regional School District - and your taxes are paying for it. It seems that every time one turns around, this group is either threatening legal action for one thing or going to court for another. Will it never end?

According to a story in yesterday’s Sentinel, “Richard Bauries — of the watchdog citizens’ group The Monadnock School Taxpayers Association — said he had instigated the action because of concerns about the warrant’s wording.”

At least one taxpayer is fed up. He connected with KFM today to express his frustration.

“That’s not the way you save money for the taxpayers,” he said. “What’s going on with these people? They are causing unnecessary expense for the district, arguing about whether the word ‘evergreen’ was used one day and not the day before. It’s just absurd.”

Is this a good use of your taxpayer dollars? Decide for yourself. Read the Keene Sentinel article here. Read The Sentinel’s brief history of this mess here. We’ve also pasted both below for you.

Add your comments and let us know what you think.

********

Content © 2008 SentinelSource.com. Used with permission.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Monadnock legal battle keeps going
Wording of vote is latest divisive issue

Anika Clark
Sentinel Staff

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

SWANZEY CENTER — After facing numerous lawsuits in recent months, the Monadnock Regional School District is again being eyed by state officials.

Assistant N.H. Attorney General James W. Kennedy recently began examining the warrant district residents will consider at the election in March — specifically, he said, the part that deals with the teachers’ contracts.

“We’re conducting an inquiry regarding a complaint that came in last week regarding whether or not the correct process was followed concerning the notice of the warrant article,” said Kennedy, who covers all election-enforcement issues in the state.

The N.H. Attorney General’s Office did not disclose who filed the complaint against the district. But in a voicemail message to The Sentinel Tuesday night, Richard Bauries — of the watchdog citizens’ group The Monadnock School Taxpayers Association — said he had instigated the action because of concerns about the warrant’s wording.

his latest dispute is about an “evergreen” clause included in the proposed teachers’ contract. It ensures that after the contract expires in 2012, annual pay raises would continue while a new agreement is negotiated.

An evergreen clause is a provision that extends the term of a contract beyond its primary expiration date.

The school board supported this proposed contract in November and, at a meeting on Jan. 8, approved the wording of the article that will appear on this year’s ballot.

But school board member James I. Carnie of Richmond recently cried foul because the words “evergreen clause” weren’t included in the warrant language at that time.

These words did not appear in the warrant article until the public budget hearing on Jan. 10, according to school board Chairman Colline Dreyfuss and the district’s attorney, Paul L. Apple.

At a Feb. 5 school board meeting, Carnie questioned how the change occurred, asked who was answerable to it, and said it could be grounds for resignation, according to meeting minutes.

However, before board members approved the warrant language on Jan. 8, Dreyfuss told them the evergreen clause was part of the proposed contract, according to meeting minutes.

Regardless, the school board attempted to nip the issue in the bud Tuesday night by re-approving the article for the teachers’ contract — evergreen clause and all.

Carnie, who was not present at Tuesday’s meeting, drew suspicion as the driving force behind Kennedy’s inquiry because he had recently threatened to contact the Attorney General’s Office on the matter.

However, in a voicemail message to The Sentinel Tuesday night, Bauries, referring to himself in the third-person, said, “It was Mr. Bauries who took Mr. Carnie with me to the Attorney General’s Office.”

The trip to the Attorney General’s Office, Bauries said, was part of a multi-stop trip to Concord that included stops at the Department of Revenue Administration, the N.H. Retirement System, the state Supreme Court library and the Secretary of State’s Office.

Bauries charged that school board members had approved the contract with only an overview of what it entailed.

His wife, Patricia Bauries, added that while the public was told at the Jan. 10 public hearing that the board supported the contract warrant article, the board had actually voted to support something different.

“They approved one thing — what they believed to be one thing — and it was another,” she said.

School board member Douglas Lyman of Troy called the glitch a “clerical oversight” and said Tuesday’s re-approval would allow the board to get back to the business of education.

Still, at Tuesday night’s meeting school board member Jonathan Kenyon of Swanzey lamented the lingering negative effects repeated litigation could have on voters’ trust in their elected officials.

In e-mails to The Sentinel, school board members such as Karen Cota of Roxbury and Eugene White of Swanzey, have also charged members of the Taxpayers Association with trying to sabotage the contract.

But Bauries showed no sign of letting up.

Despite Apple’s belief the school board’s re-approval would appease the Attorney General’s Office, Bauries said the matter could wind up in Cheshire County Superior Court.

In the meantime, Apple said, legal fees are piling up, with this latest action alone costing the district thousands of dollars.

“You guys are getting to a point where … you might want to consider hiring an on-staff lawyer,” he told board members. “You’ve got enough to keep yourselves busy.”

Anika Clark can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1432, or aclark@keenesentinel.com.

Evergreen clause source of dispute in past

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

SWANZEY CENTER — The latest inquiry by the Attorney General’s office isn’t the first time the evergreen clause has come into dispute in the Monadnock Regional School District.

The clause, which is a provision that extends the term of a contract beyond its primary expiration date, was originally included in the 2003-06 teachers’ contract that voters approved.

But last March, the Public Employee Labor Relations Board ruled the clause unenforceable, arguing that Monadnock residents weren’t properly notified of it in the 2003 warrant.

The meaning of that decision has became a source of confusion during this new contract cycle.

Some school board members assumed the labor relations board’s ruling axed the evergreen clause from the 2003-06 contract.

“When you have a contract and something through either litigation or through a ruling of a government entity is removed from that contract or declared unenforceable, it’s no longer in the contract,” said Troy school board representative Douglas Lyman.

But attorney Paul L. Apple said the clause never actually went away.

“It’s still a clause in the contract. It’s just unenforceable,” he said.

The importance of this distinction?

Based on this logic, if school board members assumed the clause was gone because it wasn’t listed as a “change” between the old and new contracts, they were wrong.

— Anika Clark

Sullivan plays offense and defense

Published by Michael Hoefer on December 31, 2007 in Editorial and Taxes. 1 Comment

At the most recent School board meeting Attorney Apple reviewed the state of affairs with the legal action taken by the town of Sullivan against the MRSD. He is confident in his research on the matter that the charges are baseless. Unfortunately the matter could cost the District up to $25,000 in legal fees to defend.

The irony is thick, the Monadnock School Tax Payers Association, (through their “front”, the Sullivan select-board) are essentially raising taxes within the district so the board can fight a nuisance legal action. Guess they do not care about the taxpayer as much as they say they do!

And, pity the taxpayers in Sullivan who get to pay twice! Once through their town taxes to prosecute and then again via their school taxes to defend!

The New Hampshire Disadvantage: The Tax Mess We’re in and Why It Hurts Our Kids

Published by admin on February 12, 2007 in Taxes. 0 Comments

Rob Mitchell

With all of the complaining we do about taxes in the Monadnock Regional School District, you might think that New Hampshire taxpayers have one of the highest tax burdens in the country.

You would be mistaken.

Overall, when it comes to the level of state and local taxes, New Hampshire ranks 49th, according to the MoneyCentral story, The Best and Worst States for Taxes. (The table below is excerpted from the story, and sorted by state rank).

Overall, New Hampshire taxpayers have some of the lowest taxes of any state in the Union. So what’s wrong?

New Hampshire relies more heavily on the property tax than any other state and it ranks near the bottom in terms of the level of state aid to education.The rest of the burden for supporting education falls on local government.

Schools are the one of the most expensive parts of state and local government, yet the majority that burden is shouldered by taxpayers through state and local property taxes. Why is that unfair? One hundred years ago only the wealthy owned property. Property taxes were a tax on the rich.

Times change. Owning a home has become a staple of the middle class, including those with low or moderate income. In addition, property is no longer is the sole basis of wealth – merely a tiny part of it. The property tax has evolved to become a “regressive” tax that reduces the tax load on people with higher incomes and shifts it disproportionately to those with smaller incomes. Many of the wealthiest citizens pay relatively little while poor and moderate income homeowners shoulder a high tax burden in proportion to their income.

While the State of New Hampshire has been under pressure to adequately fund education, it has no viable way to raise the revenues needed to do so. New Hampshire is one of just five states that have no sales tax and it’s one of just seven with no income tax. Only Alaska has neither an income tax nor a sales tax. Unlike New Hampshire, however, Alaska has huge oil tax revenues that support its government.

Politicians in New Hampshire have boxed themselves in, having taken “The Pledge” against new taxes in general and income taxes in particular. The lobby against the sales tax is strong. They call it “The New Hampshire Advantage.” But to whose advantage is it, really? Every state that New Hampshire borders has a sales tax. A sales tax would simply level the playing field, not put New Hampshire merchants at a disadvantage. Can’t our merchants compete on an even footing with those across our borders?

This state of affairs leaves the state with few options. New Hampshire cobbles together funds to run government through its liquor store monopoly, “sin taxes” on cigarettes, gasoline taxes, a prepared food tax, and lotto ticket sales, among others. Since those revenues aren’t enough to make ends meet, the state is perpetually cutting back on programs.

New Hampshire managed to scrape by until the state was forced by a Supreme Court ruling to start funding a bigger piece of education pie. It had no money to do so and no mechanism for raising more revenues. Instead of finding a new and equitable way to raise taxes, the state turned to the property tax – the very tax that has created the crisis in the first place.

Property taxes are much hated, and not just in New Hampshire. According the MSN story, “A recent poll by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation says that no tax annoys Americans as much as the property tax. One probable reason for this, according to a foundation report, is that property owners often have to write the checks themselves, increasing the likelihood of sticker shock. Another reason is that because of the housing boom of the past few years, property taxes have climbed more quickly than incomes.”

Thanks to the state’s dereliction of duty when it comes to funding education, and due to its inability to provide its citizens with a fair and equitable system of taxation, the burden of government continues to fall disproportionately on the backs of those of moderate means. The New Hampshire Advantage accrues primarily to the wealthy and to merchants, while New Hampshire homeowners have the dubious distinction of having the second highest property taxes in the country, ranking only behind New Jersey. Ironically, while the wealthy are increasingly moving to lower tax states, many are not choosing New Hampshire.

The ultimate victim of this penny-wise pound foolish government isn’t just the taxpayer: it’s our educational system and our kids. With five straight years of default – or less than default – budgets in the Monadnock Regional School District, our children are the ones who have paid the price..

<h2>Taxes by State </h2>

State Gasoline* Cigarettes Retail sales** All state, local taxes*** Rank