CSD 9 to re-vote on budget next month

16 years ago

By Ben Austin
Staff Writer

    DYER BROOKE — Monday night, the CSD 9 school board, in Dyer Brook, voted to once again put forth the same budget that has already been voted down by voters in the towns within the district once this summer.
    CSD 9 held a special hearing for all citizens of the six towns within their district Monday night as part of their ongoing process to pass a budget for the quickly approaching school year. At a special board meeting on August 11 the board voted to once again take questions from the public regarding what they can do to pass their budget, which has already been voted down twice this summer.
    The meeting quickly jumped into a one-on-one question and answer session between Superintendent Terry Comeau and one vocal citizen.
    "When you do your budget, annually, do you do a detailed budget analysis … do you really scrutinize that budget?” questioned Regis Beulier.
    Comeau replied to all questions quickly, reciting figures from state-wide plans and laws, explaining in depth why certain amounts of money were being spent for each category.
    "We have several things, we have a master plan, that consists of twenty-six plans that the state asks us to put together, and in that we also work with our New England Accreditation Association … and right now we didn’t meet adequate yearly progress in the past years so we have what is called the SIPs plan … that works with data that we use and how we do things so that we will do better on the exams that are given,” explained Comeau to the crowd of voters.
    Overall, the approximately thirty-five voters who showed up to the meeting appeared to agree that, although they would like to cut more money from the budget, they did not want to do so in a manner which would negatively effect the education of students within the district.
    "I don’t’ think anybody is looking for you to eliminate any teacher positions or the aid positions, rather,  look at other non-educational things, possibly the athletics,” stated Jamie Main, of Island Falls, to the board.
    After some lengthy discussion, a few members of the board, as well as voters from the community, felt that by cutting more from athletics the school would be hindering social aspects of students’ educations, which could be equally detrimental as cutting educational courses.
    Eventually, some citizens who had been sitting quite silently for most of the meeting became more vocal, stressing the need for the towns to send out their taxes, and the idea that the board had already cut the budget as far as they possibly could without negatively affecting the quality of education of the students.
    “I think it’s very sad that the school board is asking the general public to make suggestions on where to cut, because we’re sitting on the outside and we do not know where cuts can be made. We can just throw stuff out but, that’s not fair to you guys and that not fair to the teachers and it’s not fair to the students,” expressed Kristi Brannen, sympathetically, to the board.
    Following all discussion, the board members decided to make a motion, and voted unanimously to put forth the same budget, which the citizens had already voted down once, because they did not feel they could cut anything else from the budget.
    Finally, the board decided to set the dates of the budget meeting, the board meeting, and finally the referendum. They voted to hold the budget meeting on September 8, the regular board meeting on September 9, and the budget vote on September 15.
    "Let’s just hope that we get some more information out. I think we need to do that. I think that people need to understand where we’re coming from, more than they do,” said Comeau after the meeting.
    For more information on the proposed budget contact the superintendent's office at 757-8223.