The Story
Buckle up, folks! Budget season has arrived.
What does that mean?
It’s officially come time for the school board to deliberate and decide on the budget that they’ll propose to the town voters for approval in March. We’re still in the very early stages of the process, as Mr. Fournier just proposed his ideal version of the budget to the board last Monday.
Why is this important?
It’s important for voters to pay attention to the budget because if not enough people vote to approve the budget, the district ends up reverting to the default budget. This can be dangerous because the budget Mr. Fournier is proposing is already quite tight (they spent 2 hours trying to shift money around to accommodate paying every member of the staff).
Why is the default budget not ideal?
If the proposed budget fails to pass, it would mean that certain warrants that are very important to the district operations would be eliminated from the budget. These projects include sprinkler and alarm systems, HVAC systems, and BEA negotiations. These projects wouldn’t be in the proposed budget in the first place if the superintendent didn’t believe they were necessary.
How about an outline?
The proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2023 is approximately $81,952,004, which is about $2 million more than the FY2022 budget. The vast majority of the budget (about $62.7 million) goes towards personnel. Approximately $6.3 million is allocated for district wide needs. About $1.7 million goes to school operations, with the high school using about $985,000 of it. It’s clear who the favorite child of the district is…
What else?
Maintenance takes up roughly $2.4 million, food service requires about $1.3 million, and other smaller amounts of funds are dedicated to technology and SAU. About $5.5 million goes to the Special Education programs throughout the district. Boring numbers, we know, but they’re important.
The Runaway
Budget season is in full swing! Stay tuned for more info further along in the process.
What to Say…
When we’re Number 1 in the nation…
Winter is coming, and although everyone is very excited for winter festivities and the like, it also means cold, flu and a COVID spike. A lot of people are worried about the amount of cases of the new Omicron variant spreading to the United States from elsewhere in the world. There currently are no reported cases in NH, but community transmission fromNew York City may spill over to the surrounding states, and we’re not quite a comfortable distance from The Big Apple. Though everyone is tired of COVID, at least we are all learning the Greek alphabet in the process. New Hampshire is #winning right now, with the most daily covid cases in the country over the last 7 days. However, new data from the NH DHHS is showing that 97% of the cases and deaths in the state are unvaccinated people. Funny how that works… In addition to COVID, winter means cold and flu season.That’s why everyone has been coughing and hoarding tissue boxes this past month. Those masks are looking quite fashionable right now…
When our regular source of entertainment is back…
The winter sports season is finally upon us! Tryouts pretty much wrapped up this past week and games will be starting soon for basketball, hockey, gymnastics, skiing, swimming and diving, winter track, and winter spirit. The girls varsity basketball team will be defending their state title along with the swim team and the boys and girls alpine skiing (we hope their dominance doesn’t go downhill). And with boys soccer done for the year, we’ll be on the lookout for a new source of beratement.
When it’s a dark drama TV show trope…
Bedford, NH is your usual sleepy suburban town in one of the areas of the country with the least amount of crime or activity… There’s been a lack of content to report as of late, but we guess no news is good news? However, Bedford resident Kimberly Heller is shaking things up for us. Heller was arrested on November 18th for mistreatment of a corpse. Yep, you read that right. Kimberly’s mom became food for worms all the way back in May according to the police. Or, technically she didn’t, since Kim decided to hang on to her mum a bit longer to collect social security checks. There’s a point where having a good relationship with your mom can go a little too far… The police got calls from some worried family members, saying they hadn’t heard from the mother in months, but refused by Heller to let them search the house. The BPD had to issue a warrant, whence they found the body. Heller is expected to be charged for abuse of corpse in January. For now, the moral of the story is, check up on your grandmas. Especially this time of year, where there might be some rogue reindeer wandering around.
Things to Know
Intersession signups are underway…
It’s the sophomores’ turn this week, and the freshmen’s the week after.
The countdown begins…
Only 14 school days until holiday break. You can do it!