By Ryan O'Connor
Staff Writer

The deliberative session of Goffstown’s Town Meeting on Monday, Feb. 6, featured only three warrant articles, but still carried its share of debate.

The issue which attracted the most interest was the operating budget, which two separate articles addressed.

Several residents were upset because the proposed operating budget represents a 10.3 percent and $1.47 per $1,000 increase over 2005’s tax rate.

“Of that increase, the lion’s share of it is insurance increases, special education, contractual salary obligations, fuel costs (heating oil for schools and gasoline for buses), stuff like that,” said school board member Scott Gross, who presented the budget at the meeting. “Essentially what the school board is trying to accomplish is to recognize that many of the increases are out of our control. So one of the things we are trying to do is toe the line on issues that we do have discretion over.”

To ease the tax burden, the school board put forward an amendment to cut $200,000 from the operating budget.

Those in attendance at the deliberative session approved the amendment to reduce the proposed operating budget from $33,114,203 to $32,914,203.

Gross said the budget is actually lower than the default budget when the anticipated kindergarten costs of $650,000 are subtracted.

“That will allow us to maintain our existing programs and handle the costs of opening and operating a kindergarten,” said Gross.

“If the operating budget is voted down and we are forced to go to a default budget, there is a very real possibility that we may not be able to run the kindergarten in the upcoming year and we may just have an empty building,” he said. “Otherwise we may have to make several drastic cuts in other areas like extracurricular activities, technology and teacher staffing, which would increase class sizes.”

He added, “Essentially you are voting on a difference of $520,000, which ultimately gives you a kindergarten.”

Still, some residents said $650,000 was a lot to pay for a kindergarten that only has 150 part-time students currently enrolled.

Default budget change The other issue of contention was a petitioned warrant article which asked that responsibility for establishing the default budget be turned over to the town budget committee.

Although the budget committee as a unit has not requested the responsibility, budget committee member John Caprio put the article forward.

He said the school board is not as open with the budget process as it should be and that the budget committee, which is used to handling numbers, would be better adapted to handling the responsibility.

He asked if the Goffstown public really felt comfortable with a system in which, “the tax fox is guarding the town chicken coop.”

“I would just ask you to think about tonight,” he said at the meeting. “Have you seen the default budget spread sheet? The answer, realistically, is ‘no.’”

Daniel Cloutier, chairman of the budget committee, agreed.

“Numbers are finite. They don’t speak anything and they don’t tell any other story than what they are. I have to take a step back and ask what is the more public body that can harness and have this number done in a more public manner,” he said of his belief that the budget committee is more accessible to the public.

Members of the school board took exception to the request.

“In my opinion, the default budget should be set by the school board members who are entrusted by the voters to implement and execute the budget. We are the closest to the issues,” said Gross. “It is an extremely time consuming process in terms of putting a budget together, and giving another responsibility to the budget committee will just be adding more to their plate which already has too much on it.”

Gross also saw irony in the complaints that the school board is not open enough and is not looking out for the taxpayers.

“We do our best to be as transparent as possible. All of our meetings are completely open to the public, but few people actually ever attend,” he said, then added. “It is somewhat disappointing that the past few years we have had completely uncontested school board race. Everyone seems to be slinging arrows, but none of them seem to have the gumption to run themselves so they personally can make a difference. If people are unhappy with the way things are being done, they should vote those people (current town officials) out and run themselves.”