The facts about SB2

The Laconia Daily Sun

Wednesday 2/18/2009

Editor: A letter writer on Tuesday  to your paper wrote that claims in recent letters in support of SB2 were full of “misstatements and half truths”. I would like to say that I too am proud to live in this town along with my “alliance friends”, but that doesn’t preclude us from trying to make it even better. I do agree with one statement the letter writer made which is “to get the facts about SB2 before they vote”.

Well, here are the facts:

•     There are 73 School Districts that are SB2. Since it’s inception in 1996 NOT ONE SINGLE SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS EVER RESCINDED SB2.( Source NH Center for Public Policy)

•     The writer claims most towns with SB2 are very large Towns. No true. 32 of the 63 SB2 Towns (51%) ARE ABOUT THE SAME SIZE OR SMALLER THAN MOULTONBOROUGH. ( Source NH Department of Revenue Administration)

•     The writer said that less than 2 percent of towns per year for the last nine years have opted for SB2. This is FALSE. This past year alone (2008), SB2 Towns INCREASED BY 5% AND SCHOOLS HAVE INCREASED BY 6% ( NH Department of Revenue Administration)

•     She stated that services such as visiting nurses, fire, police and ambulance and road maintenance will be compromised. NOT TRUE. The town must prepare an operating budget and a default operating budget at the same time. The default budget is basically last years operating budget, adding contractual and other recurring expenses and eliminating one time operating expenses. A little bit more complicated, but not much. ALL OTHER APPROPRIATIONS ARE VOTED ON SEPARATELY AND ARE NOT PART OF THE DEFAULT BUDGET. So the “hearts and flowers” appropriations are not suddenly gone. By the way in Moultonborough last year there wer 18 of these Special Articles totaling $70,000 ALL VOTED INDEPENDTLY OF THE OPERATING BUDGET(Source: NH Department of Revenue Administration). She also neglected to mention that default budgets may happen in a town without SB2. That is why we actually vote at Town Meeting on operating budgets.

•     She incorrectly stated that the deliberative session replaces Town Meeting. NOT TRUE. Per the New Hampshire Department of Revenue Administration the deliberative session is a form of town meeting. The discussions, amendments etc work EXACTLY THE SAME AS TOWN MEETING.

•     She stated that warrant articles (at the deliberative session) “can be drastically changed by a handful of people that are NOT elected who do not have all the information or who have an axe to grind”. So how does that differ from Town Meeting? It doesn’t. People have EXACTLY THE SAME RIGHTS AT BOTH THE DELBERATIVE SESSION AND TRADITIONAL TOWN MEETING except that  SB2 WILL ALLOW ALL VOTERS 30 days to review and understand the articles AND THEN EVERYONE CAN VOTE INCLUDING BY ABSENTEE BALLOT.

We would invite anyone who wants to be better informed about SB2 to visit our website WWW.MoultonboroCitizensAlliance.org or email us at MoultonboroCitizensAlliance@Yahoo.Com. 

Paul Punturieri

Moultonboro Citizens Alliance

Moultonboro, NH

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