The Portsmouth Town Council and School Committee held an open forum this evening at the Middle School to solicit citizen input on the proposed 2007-08 budget, and they heard concerns about school warrant items, transfer station user fees, the Prudence Island School closure, and Hog Island waste collection.

The meeting was held in the Middle School auditorium because of capacity concerns, but only about 70 people showed up (the Town Council chambers can actually hold twice that number). Perhaps the fact that the budget came it at the Paiva-Weed cap (5.25% on the levy, for about a 4% increase in the tax rate) accounted for the generally positive reception.

Even PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris was complimentary. After a bizarre opening, where he called the budget "a moveable feast," (huh?) he settled down. "This budget is a good budget," he said. "We in the PCC like this budget."

There was a presentation by the Prudence Island Working Committee reviewing some of the options they had considered for keeping their school open (convert it to a charter or magnet, university partnership, split into a separate school district, corporate sponsorship, replace the teacher with a tutor) but they acknowledged that it would be difficult to implement any of these before September.

Among those who spoke supporting PI, Cheshire Kathy Melvin had to get up and grill Dick Carpender on the same question about why the proposed savings in January for closing the school were only 35K. He has answered this question at several meetings: As Dr. Lusi said tonight, it was because in January, they couldn't shift bell times at Melville, and would have had to tuition the students to Bristol at a cost of $13K each.

Council President Dennis Canario stressed again the need to be fair to the Prudence Islanders. "When these folks moved there, there was a school." The Council and School Committee clearly continue to agonize over this, and RIDE has yet to weigh in, so this one may go extra innings.

When it came time to talk about user fees for the transfer station, PCC, Inc. Newsletter editor Joe Robicheau (I'm being very polite to all their officers, aren't I?) gamely trotted out the chestnut of user fees being "nothing more than a disguise for a trash tax." He wanted to know, "What will happen to the $500K collected for solid waste?"

Town Administrator Bob Driscoll patiently explained the fee-for-service model, and why towns that have tax caps have to look for alternative funding mechanisms for non-required services. "Right now," said Driscoll, "People who have curbside pickup subsidize those who don't."

But Robicheau wasn't satisfied. "Clearly it's the Town Administration that's getting the relief."

"Not sure what you mean," said Driscoll.

"The purpose of the Paiva-Weed bill was to provide tax relief for the people."

In Portsmouth, Driscoll said, "You have a government committed to providing services to this town. It's about time some of us showed some pride in this town. You want a service, you have to pay for it." (He got applause for that.)

PCC, Inc. Legal Defense Fund Chair Forrest Golden (Okay, now I'm fawning.) congratulated the Council on their budget, and said that he had some "ideas on cost reduction" but would follow up with the Council separately, since it would take too much time. I would make a Fermat's Last Theorem joke, but I'm playing nice.

Vernon Gorton, in a classy move, urged the Council to rethink the devastating cuts to social service funding. He reminded them of what they — or future Councils — will face when going to other towns on regional issues. What we are telling them now, he said, is "When the going gets tough, we circle the wagons and abandon our commitments."

Then came the most contentious issue of the night: the school warrants. According to the current numbers, the town could fund these $700K in warrants for school technology (which includes computers, software, and textbooks) and building improvements for as little as $18K. SOS leader Matt Daily had a hard time understanding why we would throw away all that spending capability for the schools just to save $18K "What could be more short sighted?" he asked.

One Portsmouth resident, Emily Copeland, described visiting the elementary school library and discovering that the encyclopedia was from 1978. "It's not a luxury for kids to know that the Cold War is over," she said.

Kristin McClintock asked the logical question: If the court, in the Caruolo decision identified a minimum legal funding, how could cutting the $700K not produce an illegal budget?

"I get to respond as the architect of this disaster," said Driscoll. When he prepared the initial budget, there were still residual funds in the Tech and Building warrant accounts. Dr. Lusi amplified that the Town would not have had the list of purchase orders that already existed, encumbering the funds on the school side. The actual number left in the tech warrant, for example, is now just $367.

Rose Muller, the new Director of IT for the schools, described the impact of not having the tech money. A dozen database systems on the admin side need licensing and maintenance (health records, attendance, grading) not to mention the licenses for student workstation software. "If we don't invest in technology, in the 21st century, we're doing a tremendous disservice to our students."

Several folks from Hog Island voiced their concerns about the solid waste disposal issues there, and urged the Council to restore money to that program.

Canario wrapped up the surprisingly subdued meeting at just about 9 pm. "We have a few days to let what you said sink in," he promised the attendees, "I can assure you as a Council we will do our very best," and he urged everyone to come back on Monday night for the final discussion and vote. Festivities begin at Town Hall at 5:30.