Portsmouth: Save Our Schools, Wednesday June 9 [upate]

By John McDaid | Saturday, 5 June 2010
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Visit the SOS web site

Two of the original organizers of Save Our Schools, Dave Croston and Terri Cortvriend, have been working to once again bring supporters together to fight the recent Portsmouth Town Council action to cut the school budget, according to an e-mail distributed last evening. Said Croston:

This past Tuesday, the Town Council voted to "Level Fund" the schools, a functional cut of $1.2 Million from the School Committee budget. We are rapidly mobilizing school supporters to an information night next Wednesday, June 9th. We would love to see you, your neighbors, and friends. Please feel free to email this note to your friends. I need not tell you the outcome of a $1.2 Million cut to academics, the arts, music and athletics. Simply said, we will not have any of the latter two and the primary two will be deeply impacted. Your support is appreciated!— Dave Croston e-mail

If you're a regular reader, you know my bias here. But just to be clear: I've been following the budget process, and the school committee developed a 2011 budget which, at a 2.5% increase — just $900K — is extremely tight. They brought it in under the state-mandated S3050 tax cap, and still have about $150K in cuts they need to identify. They've been able to trim that much in past years.

But $1.2 million? That's not sustainable.

We're still dealing with the structural hole left by the last Tent Meeting, only part of which was restored by the Superior Court. We've closed two schools in the past two years, and we've held our teachers to step increases only. We had a performance audit that told us the district is efficient and recommended an increase in spending. There's just not a million-two to cut.

Look, I know the Council is in a bind. The cuts in state aid are unsupportable for them too. But tossing out an arbitrary number and demanding the schools meet it is something I expect of the PCC, not our elected officials.

Hope to see you all Wednesday night.

Update: Forgot to put in the link for Terri's Facebook group, "Save the Arts and Sports in Portsmouth." Almost a hundred members in less than a day. Yaaay.

Tags: 
Localblogging, 02871, Schools

Comments

old timer

Wed, 06/09/2010 - 8:03am

John

"Something you expect from the PCC, not our elected officials"? When will you learn that when we speak of the town council, our elected officials are the PCC! There is virtually no PCC demand that is not granted. Councilor Gleason has always been in lock step with them. It didn't take long for Councilor Plumb to decide that the real job of local governing is too hard. It turns out, it is difficult to effectively balance spending and provision of services so he's just given up and begun spouting platitudes like "I'll speak for the taxpayer", and endorsing simplistic "sound byte solutions" like level funding. He does that, the PCC pats him on the back tells him he's wonderful, and all is right with the world. When the PCC demands a slew of charter changes like recall of officials, nonpartisan elections and others designed to increase the influence of special interest groups like the PCC, he wholeheartedly endorses them to be placed on the ballot without review by the charter review commission. No need, put it on the ballot, let the people decide! However when there is a proposal for a bond referendum to finance athletic fields he vows to fight letting it go to the voters. What happened to let the people decide? Could it be the PCC supports the charter changes and opposes the bond referendum? Gleason embarrasses a young man at a skate park meeting for wearing a commercially produced t-shirt with an abstract figure of a person flipping the bird and demands he disrobe. Yet when the PCC members show up at a sewer meeting with signs fully spelling out expletives, not a word is said. Pres. McIntyre lets Mr. Fitzmorris monopolize every meeting. Mr. Little goes with the flow. Only Seveney and Canario even question the PCC positions. I hold out some hope for Hamilton (he did reverse his vote on funding the study of regionalization), on school issues, but even that leaves the council solidly 4-3 PCC. Even though the performance and financial audits show the school budget is lean it is always the PCC target simply because so much money can be cut on paper, so don't expect anything different from this council.

Portsmouth Citizen

Wed, 06/09/2010 - 10:19pm

Boy you sure hit the nail on the head. I forgot all about the athletic fields issue where Plum refused to let it go to "the people", but when Fitzmorris of the PCC presented a whole list of things for the ballot, Plum, Hamilton, Gleason, McIntyre and Little rubber stamp the idea.

I watch the broadcasts of what goes on at the council meetings, and I just scratch my head. I often wonder if I'm the only one who sees the PCC running the show, with McIntyre seemingly unable (or unwilling) to lift the gavel and lead. I am hoping that rational people will take back control of the council come November.

Maybe you should run...