Representative Town Meeting Annual Budget Meeting Materials - Day 4 (linked)

David Campo
From: Mary Childs <childsmm@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2020 2:21 PM
” To: David Campo
Ce: Mary Childs
Subject: RTM comment
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Dear Mr. Campo and RTM members, | am writing to you as a resident of Waterford for over 37 years.
| have three children who attend our Public School System. | am concerned about the proposed cuts
to the BOE budget. The proposal to cut $470,000 is concerning for a multitude of reasons.
This committee represents the residents of Waterford not only the taxpayers. Our youngest residents,
our students, while not a large part of the tax base, need to be the center of all considerations for
suggested budget cuts. What the BOE presentation showed you was that our kids are greatly
benefitting from the way we currently supply services to them, during a regular school session.
Please review the power point data and ask questions about what those slides mean and what those
numbers represent. Our students deserve and have the right to the quality education that we have
been able to provide them with and have the right to continue to expect quality education.
Instead of making a blanket percentage cut, arbitrarily totaling $470,000, and reminding the
Superintendent that the Board of Education can ask for more funding from the General Fund later, the
Members needed to make a more realistic proposal. To ask the Superintendent to look for additional
places to be more efficient and find areas to make cuts would have been more diplomatic. It was
stated that individual line items cannot be addressed by the RTM. That being said, the suggestion of
using a Coach to cover a classroom while a teacher has a meeting as a way to reduce the budget by
$470,000, is unacceptable. The intricacies of a school day and the functioning of a student body rely
onan entire team of professionals including custodians, administrative assistants, administrators,
teachers, paras, and a variety of related service and support staff. Your proposed cuts would
drastically challenge the ability to function successfully.
As members of our elected town representatives, you have undertaken a massive role. | humbly
suggest that instead of politicizing this and siding with a particular party, you instead listen to your
neighbors. Many of your neighbors came to Waterford for the great school system. The State
recognizes this truth, as should you.
| do not typically respond or offer opinions to your membership, as | trust that, typically you have our
community's best interest in mind in all of your proceedings. At this point, J feel that yous are
challenging my trust. Respectfully submitted, Mary Moffett Childs _
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