Let's not forget school board chairman Keith Allard's announcement at the school deliberative session in February that the school board will be returning $610,000 to the taxpayers at the end of the current fiscal year in June.  

"Looking at our current expenditures and our current revenue sources, we may have an extra $610,000 to give back," Allard said.

So what's all this talk at the school board meeting Monday night about spending $150,000 for a new VOIP phone system at the high school?  Where is that money coming from?

For those of you who don't know, the school board's current budget, which ends on June 30th, has NO money in it for such a phone system.  Rather, the school board had placed a line-item for this system in the school board's proposed budget for next year, a budget that was reduced by the Budget Committee - and the taxpayers - by about $1 million (which, by the way, is still about $1 million more than they have this year).

After that reduction became etched in stone with the Town Vote last month, Allard and SAU superintendent Stacy Buckley announced all sorts of teacher layoffs and program cuts.  In announcing those cuts in a March 18th article in the Goffstown News, Allard is quoted as saying, "Our goal was to lessen the impact to the kids to the best of our ability."  In that same article, Buckley said, "We tried to find cuts that would impact education the least. And I think we did that."

So again, where is the money for this new VOIP phone system going to come from?

Here's a more important question:  If Buckley, Allard and the rest of the school board are really trying to lessen the impact on our children, then why are they laying off teachers, but spending money on hiring administrators and buying phone systems?  Instead of replacing the Special Education (SPED) teacher at Mountain View Middle School who recently moved to California, why have they elected instead to restore an administration position?

It's time for Buckley, Allard and the rest of the school board to put their money where their mouths are - into teachers and student programs, and not into phone systems and more administrators.

And they'd better do it without touching that $610,000 they told us all they'd return to us in July.

Guy Caron can be reached via e-mail at: GuyC@GoffstownResidentsAssociation.com

Past Columns by Guy Caron  >>>