I don’t want “those old people” deciding the future of education for our children!
Ms. Robertson, Ashfield school representative, actually used the above term “those old people” on March 9 at the Mohawk School Committee meeting when referencing the possible fail-or-pass vote regarding the whopping upcoming $19 million FY 17 Mohawk school budget. “Those old people,” Ms. Robertson, have been homeowners/taxpayers funding Mohawk Regional for almost 50 years.
About four months ago, I started attending the long and tedious Mohawk Budget Subcommittee and School Committee meetings in hopes of better understanding their fiscal contradictions. Once voters sanction a budget, Superintendent Michael Buoniconti is not held to spending the line items as projected. It is a discretionary-managed budget. If he wants to hire dancing bears for yoga, conceivably you could get yoga bears.
In regards to FY 17 free preschool, costs will be about $500,000. You, the taxpayer, could be paying $300,000, the remaining $200,000 from other sources. That is an estimate based on a current-year preschool written breakdown. What happens if grant money disappears and costs climb, who knows?
Free preschool is not mandated by the state because of its luxury status. Much wealthier cities/towns throughout Massachusetts have chosen not to fund free preschool. Mohawk remains a house of cards that cannot be sustained; but, in the meantime, it is sucking financial resources out of each member town.
Buoniconti cries poor but is he really crying wolf? For example, after cuts he named his upcoming $19 million budget below-level-services. Yet one of the cuts was $280,000 that only existed on paper because those staffers were never hired. Can taxpayers afford yet another dream budget padded with nonessentials?
Please attend informational selectmen pre-town meetings and visualize dancing yoga bears. There is a lot of taxpayer money at stake and it’s sure to get worse.
LYNNE KELSEY
Buckland