Support our schools.

The Portsmouth Town Council will be taking public input (finally!) tonight on the proposed 2011 budget, and its $1.2M cut to the school department. The meeting will be in the Portsmouth Middle School at 7pm, and you'll want to get there early. The folks from Save Our Schools will be outside with fliers, so please stop by and say hello.

I would like to encourage everyone who feels comfortable to plan on saying a few words. It is expected that the Council will limit public comments, so you might want to jot down a few notes and expect to only have two or three minutes to speak. It's really important that the Council hear from all the folks who would be affected by this decision.

The School Committee came in with a reasonable budget, a 2.5% increase, and they delivered it under the tax cap. It was funding cuts by the state that put us in this position, and the S3050 tax law explicitly allows towns to exceed the cap to make up for this kind of loss in revenue.

The Council can do the right thing tonight: they can vote to fund the schools and exceed the tax cap — they already did it once, in the provisional budget, but now it would take a supermajority, or 6 out of the 7 Councilors. We can let them know that we would support them if they the right thing.

Hope to see you tonight.