Timberlane made public the NESDEC enrollment projections prodded by the insistent requests of Atkinson taxpayers and a Right to Know request by Arthur Green. My request to put it on a public webpage fell on deaf ears. It took public outcry to get it there.
The budget committee was not made aware of this report, by the way, even though the district has been getting it for years. I also believe the school board as a whole would not have been made aware of it either had I not accidentally learned of it and brought it to their attention.
Why not? Because it projects the district losing 27% of its students in the next 9 years. That’s 1000 fewer students! If you were asking for 4% budget increases like this year, would you want people to know your customer base was shriveling like a raisin?
You can find this fascinating and well written report, renowned for its accuracy, by the way, at Timberlane.net. Go to School Board, then Documents. You will see the NESDEC Report as a file there.
UPDATE July 23, 2014 Timberlane seems to have been smitten by an urge to post things on its public site, such as school board agendas and much else. Lots of material stretching back years is being posted today. They weren’t shamed into it, do you think?
timberlaneandsandown 
Brilliant! This is a news-worthy item. Now, make the current board explain how they (allegedly) run a multi-million dollar system lacking this information.
Even the smallest business engages in forecasting and planning.
Me thinks they have too much cash. Time to change the funding formula and force school boards to manage properly.
“The budget committee was not made aware of this report”
I missed this salient detail.
Although not religious, it raises the “OMG” response.
Please find out how a school budget is fashioned without enrollment projections. Perhaps by the Ouija method? Wet finger into the wind?
Unbelievable incompetence!
Mark,
You would be SHOCKED to learn what the budget committee doesn’t consider. Staffing costs are more than 70% of our budget yet we are given ZERO information about staffing numbers for the budget we are considering. I made a request for this information in my second year on school budcom and was ignored. I then made two Right to Know requests and was REFUSED until I threatened to go to the AG’s office. That information became the basis of a devastating presentation at school deliberative that showed staffing has stayed steady while our enrollment has dropped 17% since 2008. This was complete news to the budget committee.
Similarly, they have no information about enrollment except for that current year and the past years…. no projections beyond the budget year they are working on.
As I’ve said before, the budcom is treated like mushrooms… and for the most part, they like it that way. They have actually voted down a request by Arthur Green to obtain monthly expenditure reports as incredible as that is to believe. Sandown taxpayers are getting hammered while the school budget committee repeatedly says they have control over only 10% of the budget. They are completely brainwashed. However, this year there are two strong new members plus Cathy Gorman and Arthur Green, both from Sandown, so some substantive work has a chance of getting done, though they are far from a majority vote. This is the fundamental problem with a regional school district – and a budget committee in the hip pocket of the administration.
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