HB616 coalition

[GT]

There is some sort of coalition of towns forming to overturn HB616. A number of the towns in the southern tier feel they "deserve" more state education money and are forming a group to force the Senate and courts to review the constitutionality of the bill. The towns involved are Londonderry, Pelham, Windham, Auburn, Nashua, Merrimac and some others that I can't remember. There is supposed to be a big meeting in May to address how to get more money from the state.

Has any one else heard about this?

[LiveFreeOrDie]

Liberal Patriot may have something about it. ??? http://theliberalpatriot.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_theliberalpatriot_archive.html

Here's a forum discussion about it, may have the info you are looking for about a "coalition":
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/nhinsider/vpost?id=414810

[GT]

The meeting will be May 10th at 7PM in the Londonderry High School Cafeteria. School Boards and eleected officails from several towns have been or will be invited.

The theme will be "State Education Funding, It's Never Enough".

Well just kinda of joking on the theme. Not many elected officials have the nerve to state the truth.

[GT]

There is some sort of coalition of towns forming to overturn HB616. A number of the towns in the southern tier feel they "deserve" more state education money and are forming a group to force the Senate and courts to review the constitutionality of the bill. The towns involved are Londonderry, Pelham, Windham, Auburn, Nashua, Merrimac and some others that I can't remember. There is supposed to be a big meeting in May to address how to get more money from the state.

Has any one else heard about this?

School Boards, Town Officials, and elected officials, NH Reps and Senators from Hooksett, Candia, Timberlane, Plaistow, Salem, Merrimack, Bow, Litchfield, Windham, Pelham, Goffstown, New Boston, Ameherst, Sohegan and several others have been invited to gather to get more state funding than HB616 is giving. A couple of comments that were made when they announced the gathering.

They will not broadcast the meeting live over the local public access. It will be recorded.
The meeting will be held in the band room in the high school CAfeteria was booked. (small venue limits public participation?)
Maybe we should invite derry even though they are getting more money under HB616
They will contact people on the list as to time and place of the meeting.
The public will be ALLOWED to attend, but there will be little or no comment accepted.

[Dave Ridley]

I'm in favor of 616 since it apparently reduces spending and also reduces redistribution.

[GT]

I'm not sure which side is correct any more. HB616 does redistribute funding to "poorer" comunities. Some of the norrthen school disctricts would get more than 50% of their funding from the state. I beleive Berlin would get almost 82% from the state. There will definitely be a legal challenge Londonderry has already put $30k in for lawyers.

At the meeting it was pointed out that it was a "non-public public meeting" Translation if you were just an ordinary citizen you were not allowed to speak!

[GT]

Nashua is currently slated to loose money under the new HB616. They are also apparently searching for a new superintendent. So what is the School Boards Solution?

Raise the Salary of the new Superintendent! They wanted it raised to $175,000. The town capped it to a Max of $125,000. The position paid $112,455 in 2004. The requested increase would have been $50,000 more than the highest paid superintendent in the state.

http://nsnlb.us.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050512/NEWS01/105120028

[Lloyd Danforth]

I think that the most any public employee should be paid, should amount to less than the statewide average yearly pay of those in the privite sector.