Battle Being Waged Over Pittsfield School Budget

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This time last year, Pittsfield resident Dan Schroth was standing in front of the town’s supermarket urging residents to go to the school district meeting and vote against the school budget.
This year, he’s hitting the streets.

Hello, you a Pittsfield a resident by any chance ? oh you are? Your taxes a lot of money? (Yeah, 4300 a year) So we got to stop with the budget increases. We can afford to give the school 125 thousand and not have our taxes go up....

Schroth argues that the tax rate in Pittsfield – at 28 dollars per thousand - is too high.
And he says the school district’s increasing budget is partly to blame.

I feel as a town we should never spend more than what we make and they feel that education is so important that we should just increase the taxes if we don’t have enough revenue and I don’t think its worth spending more than what we make for education

Pittsfield has about 4,000 people – but typically only 100 residents show up for the school district meeting.
Turnout can often play a crucial role in the outcome.
Last year was a perfect example says Donna Clairmont, the business administrator for the school district.

People that would normally have gone to our district meeting to support the school budget weren’t there because they really didn’t feel that it was an issue there wasn’t anything that was compelling in terms of having to come out and show their support.”

School district officials had proposed a four and a half percent increase in the school budget last year.
But thanks to an increase in state aid, the town would have actually seen a tax decrease.
Pittsfield School Board Chair Scott Brown says the result was that most school supporters were complacent.
And the school district meeting became a perfect opportunity for Dan Schroth and other opponents of the budget.

He had brought forth approximately 30 to 40 people that I don’t believe had any interest in trying to pass a budget that was fair, they simply wanted to pass a budget that would decrease the tax rate and he pulled a number out of the air and they went along with him.

The vote resulted in the school district having to cut 400-thousand dollars out of its budget.
Scroth says people were shocked.

on the way out of the meeting was the worst part, there were people who were crying, people who were upset, one guy comes up to me and said good job a**hole, people were very upset.

The school district immediately froze its budget to save money.
School officials cut technology and maintenance, imposed a 50-dollar user fee on high school students for sports each season, and cut an elementary summer school program that helped students in reading and math.
Parent Karen Smith says the cut in summer school directly affected her fifth grade son’s education.

Last year I did so much stuff with him and he still lost ground on all his testing, he went down, in summer school the teachers know exactly what they’re teaching, they know what to work on, there’s just a huge difference.

This year, parents, teachers and educators are fighting back.
(Nat sound from meeting)
At this meeting organized by the Pittsfield Elementary School’s Parent Teacher organization, school district officials explained this year’s budget, which asks for an almost 700-thousand dollar increase.
More than 50-percent of the increases are contractual obligations -- like teacher salaries and health insurance costs.
The budget also hopes to make up for some of the cuts from last year.
People here don’t want to see any cuts this year, but they’re clearly worried about what they call misinformation from budget opponents like Dan Schroth.
PTO President Stephanie Lamiere.

I think misinformation is the worst thing you can have when you go to vote, if you don’t have the facts you just have heresay, it’s sad, if you just have one letter to the editor or one person’s slanted view, rather than the whole picture it can hurt the whole process.

Their worry over potential cuts may be justified.
(nat sound from restaurant)
Schroth organized this breakfast meeting in downtown Pittsfield to try to
garner support to stop the proposed school budget.
Pittsfield resident Cindy Thompson came to the meeting.
She has two kids currently in the school system, but says she’ll vote against the 700-thousand dollar increase this year.

I feel like I’m doing the right thing and I’m doing it for my kids, because if I don’t then I don’t want to put my home up for sale, I don’t want to lose my home because I can’t pay my taxes, and I can’t pay my mortgage.

Nat sound door knocking
Schroth and Thompson are also going door to door, urging people to vote for only a slight increase in the school district’s budget.
we’re looking at giving them 125-thousand dollars increase this year, that’s money we’ve got, in other words, without raising our taxes this year…

School district officials say if Dan Schroth is successful, the effects would be devastating to the school system.
Again, Pittsfield School Board Chair Scott Brown.

you’re talking about teachers, which relates to classes, which relates to less electives at the high school level, I can’t even fathom where we would find the numbers of dollars that have been bantered about by him in terms of what he thinks is appropriate for an increase

But Schroth isn’t taking credit for what happened at the school district meeting last year, and won’t this year either.
I always say one man is a pissant, one man is nothing by himself, he’s a joke, it takes everybody else to start speaking up, then you start something.

And if there’s one thing that people on both sides the debate agree on, it’s that for school district meeting to be a truly democratic, more people should participate in the New Hampshire tradition.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.

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