Marseglia.org

Lincoln Financial Town Meeting
5/11/2009, 7:30PM
Lincoln High School

In two weeks, Lincoln will have its Financial Town Meeting. Unfortunately, the School Department has not been cooperating with the rest of the Town. The School Department did not make its budget accessible to the public at the last public session I attended.

The claim is that it was "too complicated" to distribute; however, having previously worked for a school district I am dubious of their claim. Why did they fail to present their budget as Town Administrator, Joe Almond, did, line-by-line and department by department?

It was irresponsible for the Department not to submit a line-by-line budget for consideration. Lacking sufficient information, the public will make decisions based on hearsay and emotions.

The School Department's budget is up this year, as it was last year. Why the increase?

I read a series of editorials in the Valley Breeze, 1, 2, and an op-ed by Arlene Violet, here.

In the absence of information from the School Department, I turned to RIDE's information database. RIDE's data shows the largest expenditure is primarily teacher salaries and benefits. Therefore to reduce the budget teacher salaries and benefits must be cut.

At the 2008 Lincoln Financial Town Meeting I watched a small percentage of like-minded residents motion and approve an approximate $500,000 increase to the School Department budget for no specific purpose.