Headline events in Windham over the last several weeks have again proven that fiscal policies in our public schools, at both the state and local levels, have failed. To many citizens throughout the region and state, this is not news. We have attended our share of School Board meetings and have stood up at Budget and Annual Town meetings to warn our neighbors of this impending financial “train wreck” about to happen. Maybe now more people will listen.
Windham however is not alone in its embarrassment. At least the controversy surrounding their “undesignated fund balance,” “reserve,” “surplus” or “contingency,” call it what you will, is public and transparent. In my hometown of Raymond it hides behind public meetings held at 5 o’clock in the afternoon and meeting minutes that are not made public until weeks after actions are taken. Let me explain.
On June 29, just two days before the start of the Fourth of July weekend, the Raymond School Board met at the less than public accessible time of 5 p.m. to discuss and vote on an agenda item simply called “Transfers.” It was left to the imagination as to what or who was being “transferred.” Quietly and quite legally the Board shifted $153,000 of previously defended “bare bones” budget line items to new spending. No official record of this action was available to the public for seven weeks since the Board recessed for the summer and the minutes of the meeting were not approved until August 17. As of August 29, the minutes were still not available on Raymond’s cutting edge Web site! In the meantime, several articles have been published by school officials in the local newsletter, the “Roadrunner” describing the June 29 meeting and the subsequent new spending without any mention of the “transfers.”
It is not whether you agree or disagree with the decision to spend an extra $24,000 on legal expenses for the ill-advised contract dispute with school employees or the $15,000 for a tractor to move mulch and snow when possibly outside contracts and “One Raymond” Public Works could have done the job more cost effectively. It’s really about transparency and honesty. School officials and self-interested parents will remind us every year at budget time of the sacrifices that are being made in our schools and how the lack of funds are threatening the foundations of public education. Escalating administration compensation packages and mismanagement issues are ignored and padded budgets are passed. One can only interpret the campaign slogan “It’s for the Children” as really meaning “It’s for my kid.” Former and present school and municipal officials in Raymond receive $6,000 per year public subsidies to send their children to $15,000-per-year private academies yet tell you that “choice” is what drives their decision to fight cost-saving consolidation efforts. Budget decisions are made in an almost clandestine way with little or no public debate.
Surely no one is happy about what is happening in Windham but citizens of Raymond, where over 80 percent of every tax dollar raised is spent on education, or Casco or Standish should be concerned and outraged. The warning signs have been there for years. The patient is dying.
How can one support the promise of “One Raymond” or a “One Windham” when a School Board does not even consult with a town’s Budget and Finance Committee or Select Board regarding $100,000 “transfers”? How can we honestly believe and support “No Child Left Behind” when school administrations fail to publicly recognize its 2005 graduating High School seniors, as was the case in Raymond this year.
It is time for voters with a special interest in preserving “Business as Usual” in our schools to consider the interests of the larger community, and for the disinterested voter to get involved. Without their actions I’m afraid we’ll be seeing more “Mystery Surplus” headlines.
Charles Leavitt
East Raymond
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