Helping voters with the issues...online

It's part of the web's contribution, evolving over the past 10 years or so, to help voters digest the issues and prepare for the upcoming flurry of town and school budget meetings.

"All of our administrators are responsible for programs we run," Braiterman said. "The principal, special education director, the director of curriculum, all contributed to that, and yes, it's unusual. I haven't seen the same thing in another New Hampshire district. I know it's long; I hope it's informative."

It is. And while it may be a bit intimidating, Braiterman's tireless effort gives voters in Hillsboro everything they've always wanted to know about the school district but, perhaps, were afraid to ask.

She says her years on the Concord School Board and in Hillsboro, where she's worked since 2003, have helped her realize what residents face each year. Her school budget report took four months to write.

"Yes, I'm pretty passionate and understand how it feels as a layperson coming in to not really understand all the things that are going on within a school district," Braiterman said.

Newbury's proposed budget of $3,223,680 on its town warrant is also posted, as is a lengthy newsletter detailing each article and the three contested races.

"Everyone is very busy with their lives and they don't have the chance to go to every meeting they would probably like to to become better informed," said Newbury town administrator Dennis Pavlicek. "Our board has felt it's important that we get the word out to people on information totally transparent. We're not trying to spin anything, so people are aware of the issues, especially about where the budget is."

Information outlets are everywhere, from websites to, more recently, the Monitor and New Hampshire Public Radio. Residents have the opportunity to learn about their communities and the issues that affect them, now more than ever before.

"I've found that when you give people much more information than they might even need, they appreciate that," Pavlicek said. "They know you're not trying to hide stuff. It might take a little bit longer, but people respect you more for that."

Even older people, those whose schooling never touched the age of computers, have adjusted to the new era. Jessie Levine, New London's town administrator, recently posted the town warrant online. She says senior citizens are tuned in.

"I have found the web to be very useful, even with our senior population," Levine said. "I haven't found there to be much of a difference in age, as far as use of the web is concerned. And I have community e-mail lists with 650 people on it, and people read those. You can see they follow the links back to the website and they make comments on how they like having that information."

Still, wider distribution of information through technology doesn't necessarily translate into bigger crowds at annual meetings.

In Hillsboro, for example, only about 10 people showed up for the school district deliberative session, despite Braiterman's 66-page document.

But Braiterman says that the site makes the school board's life easier and allows voters to head to the polls with more knowledge.

Elsewhere, PowerPoint presentations have also proved helpful, according to Lisa Stevens, Chichester's town administrator. Her town used it last year to explain a complex issue.

"Our town was redoing their benefit package and we were upgrading benefits on the town side to match the school's," Stevens said. "That was a whole transition that involved not only cost, but the selectmen had changed the portion that the employees were contributing. We had done a whole spread sheet to explain that. It took away the confusion and spelled it all out for them, kind of like a road map."

Not all towns, however, have the money, or even the need, for these types of preparatory projects or presentations. Boscawen is one such town.

"We're still a pretty small, agricultural, rural town, with limited resources," said Michael Wright, Boscawen's town administrator. "We don't have an overly sophisticated operation, and we don't typically have anything that contentious. But things change."