Windham Taxpayers

May 23, 2008
Pelham-Windham News

When the doors open to students for the first time at the new Windham High School, about 16 months from now, the person holding the title of principal will be Richard Manley. In anticipation, Manley and other members of the Windham School District administration already are putting considerable time into making plans for those students. Manley officially assumes the job of principal July 1.

During its first year, Windham High School, set to open in September of 2009, will house only freshmen and sophomores. Juniors and seniors will continue to attend Salem High School, based on a recently signed tuition agreement.

According to Manley, the hiring of high school “deans” is underway. It is anticipated that these new positions, billed as “the planning team,” will be filled soon and the people occupying these slots will come on board in July of 2008.

“What is this high school all about?” Manley asked rhetorically, during the school board’s meeting on Tuesday, May 6. His first charge will be getting to know what the community wants. Looking into what Salem offers its students will be an important part of the picture for Windham, he said.

Another of the initial tasks assigned to the planning team will be looking into accreditation, a multi-year undertaking. “We need to make sure our planning is consistent with what’s required for accreditation,” Manley said. Planners also will look into technological issues regarding equipment needs.

Many classes will be taught through inter-disciplinary instruction, using team teaching techniques. A “single-model” approach to instruction is more common in the United States, Manley said, adding that an “interdisciplinary approach is more difficult to implement.”

Scheduling of classes will involve about 80-minute blocks of time, curriculum coordinator Amanda Lacaroz said. Eight daily periods will be scheduled for the entire school year, but each student will not have every class every day. A team teaching approach will be used for English and social studies, which will be taught simultaneously with two teachers, using a humanities approach to learning. Freshmen will be offered “Foundations of Society,” sophomores “American Studies”; and eventually juniors will expand their learning to “Global Studies.” There will be teacher collaboration in mathematics and science.

An Applied Science and Technology Center will be included with programs eventually offered to all four grades. The center will offer a hands-on approach to learning and will focus on engineering studies, according to Lacaroz. “Learning centers,” rather than traditional study halls, will be available to students. There also are plans to provide greater flexibility in selecting elective classes, she said, such as art, music, wellness, theater and dance.

Manley also spoke briefly about his recent trip to China, where he “shadowed” a high school principal. Academically, Manley said, the Chinese students he met were very advanced and achieving at a high level, despite meager spending as compared to what is spent on students in the United States. However, Chinese students are not “as well-rounded as American students,” he said. “That will continue to be our advantage,” he said, referring to the diverse types of education and extracurricular activities provided in the United States.

Looking forward to the coming school year, which begins on July 1, Assistant Superintendent Roxanne Wilson said, “It’s going to be a very busy fall” for all members of the administration, as they work toward having Windham High School ready for its “classes of 2011 and 2012.”

May 18, 2008
Eagle Tribune

Several other N.H. communities considering similar requests

LONDONDERRY — Londonderry residents could soon join Derry and a handful of other New Hampshire communities that set a limit on local tax increases.

Rep. Al Baldasaro, R-Londonderry, has sent a citizen’s petition to Town Hall asking town officials to put the question on the November ballot. If his petition makes it to the ballot and voters pass it, the next town budget would be tied to the Consumer Price Index, long used as a measure of inflation.

The tax cap is not a new idea, according to Manchester’s Mike Biundo, president of the New Hampshire Tax Advantage Coalition.

Franklin was the first New Hampshire town to cap taxes 20 years ago, he said. Locally, Derry’s tax cap is almost that old. Nashua also has a cap, as do Laconia and Dover. But tax caps are receiving renewed interest this year because of the state’s financial woes, he said.

Other organizations, such as the Granite State Fair Tax Coalition, are advocating for new broad-based taxes to trim the deficit, but Biundo’s group opposes those measures.

“We’re of firm belief the way to lower taxes is to lower spending,” he said.

Although a recent poll of New Hampshire residents suggested that most people still believe the state’s finances are in good shape, those who tend to see the glass as half-empty are getting behind a push to tighten the purse strings at all levels of state government.

Biundo said tax caps are also on the table in Manchester, Concord, Rochester, Somersworth and Merrimack. He said he also expects supporters to file petitions in Bedford, Keene and Portsmouth.

Derry’s tax cap has been very successful, according to Town Councilor Kevin Coyle.

“My personal opinion is it works very well,” he said. “It keeps spending in check and forces us to live within our means and the means of people living in town.”

Baldasaro said the Londonderry Budget Committee and the Town Council did a great job of holding down spending this year, but he believes there is trouble coming in the future. He cited the $14 million that taxpayers are expected to pony up to build roads and infrastructure for 1,000 acres of private development near the airport. Plus, the community is still liable for a share of the Interstate 93 Exit 4A project, he said.

He said Town Meeting has become a spending spree, more like a Kmart blue light special than a government proceeding. Although 15,000 people are registered to vote, only 300 typically attend Town Meeting and vote on spending.

“It’s out of control,” Baldasaro said. “Taxes are just getting out of control.”

But Town Councilor Kathy Wagner said she doesn’t think a tax cap is the right solution for Londonderry.

“I guess Al is trying to do what’s right for taxpayers of the great state of New Hampshire, but this petition isn’t probably the right way to go,” she said. “It’s a political action group trying to make a statement or plot a course that they don’t need to get involved in.”

Wagner said she’s comfortable with the citizens making the spending decisions at Town Meeting. As for the fairness of having 300 people make the town’s spending decisions, she said she isn’t convinced that a ballot vote would be any more representative. She said voter turnout at the polls “are just as disgraceful” as the Town Meeting attendance.

“Yes, Al is right, there are (only) 300 people showing up for Town Meeting,” she said. “But they are 300 people that care, are informed, are educated, are vested, and are sitting back and making a decision the way it’s been done for over 299 years in the community of Londonderry. And they have done a hell of a job.”

May 18, 2008
Eagle Tribune

WINDHAM — Selectmen will review a plan tomorrow night to use retired Windham police officers on traffic details and in emergencies, as needed.

The concept has majority support on the board, but the police chief opposes it.

Board supporters include Selectmen Chairman Dennis Senibaldi and Vice Chairman Bruce Breton, who proposed the idea.

“It is a cost savings to the town,” Senibaldi said. “Look at what you pay a special officer compared to the overtime officers.”

Breton estimates the part-timer program could generate $10,000 to $15,000 a year. Windham police now turn to other towns, including Salem, Pelham and Hudson, for police officers to work road construction details when the department can’t fill those shifts, he said.

When an officer from another town covers a detail, that other town receives the difference between what the officer earns and what that town charges the contractor, Breton said.

When Windham covers the details, Windham receives the difference between what the officer is paid and the $42.50 an hour the town bills the contractor, he said.

Police Chief Gerald Lewis said, in general, he opposes the use of retired officers as part-time officers for any purpose. However, he agrees the officers could perform the functions.

Lewis said part-time officers present liabilities to the town and other officers.

“(T)hey would tend to have outdated intelligence, officer safety and other police related or procedural information,” Lewis states in a May 5 letter to Town Administrator Dave Sullivan.

Lewis also argues that the special officers would incur training expenses to meet annual department and Police Standards & Training Council standards.

He recommends the special officers be required to pass a physical fitness test.

Earlier, selectmen voted, 3-1, to support the special officer program, in concept, and asked the town administrator to report back with a proposal that reconciles the differences between Breton’s and Lewis’s ideas.

Selectman Galen Stearns voted against the motion. Earlier, he suggested the town consider contracting with private flaggers to work construction details.

Sullivan said he wants to see a program get a one-year tryout. He said the town had special officers previously and eliminated them in the mid-1990s. They weren’t needed then. The union contract provides details first be offered to regular officers, and the regular officers could handle the volume of details a decade ago.

Of late, with the Route 111 construction project, there has been a greater call for details, and the town has contracted some of them to officers from other towns when Windham’s force has been unable to fill the slots.

Windham officers worked 7,852 hours of details between January and December 2007. Out-of-town officers worked 1,459 hours of details between April and December 2007. The police chief, however, expects the need for details to decline significantly by mid- to late summer.

May 18, 20008
Eagle Tribune

SALEM — A long line of teenagers and their parents stretched from the door of the Division of Motor Vehicles on a recent morning.

They were all waiting for their driving test, the final exam driver’s education graduates need before getting a license. Many were back for their third day trying to get a spot.

Matt Foden, 17, of Pinkerton Academy had come for the third time. So had Nicole Lyons, 16, also a student at Pinkerton.

Alex Marchioni, 16, of Salem was making her second attempt to get one of only 13 test slots available each day at the Salem DMV. Like most testing centers, Salem only has one test administrator available.

Marchioni and her father, Alan, had arrived at about 8:15 a.m. the previous Thursday, and were told immediately that they’d shown up too late.

The Division of Motor Vehicles only has 16 test administrators, according to spokeswoman Katie Daley, which isn’t nearly enough to keep up with the demand. And while the agency is working to create an online appointment system, it isn’t up and running yet, she said.

“The director has been asking for more examiners, as well as more licensing clerks, for many, many years,” Daley said.

Parents and teens tell horror stories about showing up before 7 a.m., waiting for hours and being told to come back another day. Sometimes, this happens several days in a row.

Those at the front of the line at the Salem DMV at 8 on a recent morning said they’d been waiting since 6:45 a.m.

“Once you take the (written) test, you should be able to make an appointment,” said Susan Parilla of Londonderry, who brought her son Robert to get his driving test.

Parilla worries about her son and other students missing classes.

While the first-time drivers who were lined up said they’d be returning to school, all agreed they’d be missing first period.

At Pinkerton Academy, there are severe penalties for missing five first-period classes without a doctor’s note, said Lyons.

She said she had been lucky because the first two days she tried to take her driving test, April 30 and May 2, were during school vacation. But the third time she went back, she missed her first-period class.

Ivan Melton, a driver’s education instructor with Calvary Christian School in Derry, said a combination of changing rules and fewer test administrators has made for a difficult situation.

“There’s been some changes going on at the DMV,” he said. “There are less examiners right at the moment, plus the fact that they’re extending the amount of time that they take a student out to drive.”

Saul Shriber, the driver’s education teacher at Timberlane Regional School District, is less sympathetic to teens and parents, though.

When he taught in the 1980s, he said, students were allowed to make appointments to take their tests, but wouldn’t show up at the appointed time.

In the 1990s, driver education teachers were allowed to give the tests themselves, he said.

“I never really liked giving the test because it was kind of a subjective thing,” Shriber said. “The road test is very subjective, to be honest with you.”

That changed about 10 years ago, he said, when the state began giving the tests again.

Among students and parents, though, there was plenty of criticism for a system that doesn’t have enough administrators and doesn’t allow students to make appointments.

“It’s stupid,” said Lyons, the Pinkerton teen.

With only 13 testing slots per day for schools in Salem, Londonderry, Derry, Windham and other surrounding towns, “the math just doesn’t add up,” said Parilla, the Londonderry mother.

And while young students by far make up the largest proportion of test takers, there’s another demographic affected by the long waits for a driving test: the elderly.

“You have to take a driving test (if you’re) over 75,” explained Reina Dubois, who was waiting with her 77-year-old husband, Albert.

He was trying to get a testing slot and had shown up around 6:45 that morning. He was second in line.

But he wasn’t too worried about the test policy. If he got a slot, which looked likely, he wouldn’t have to return for another test.

Where to take the driver’s test locally

Salem DMV — 33 Geremonty Drive in the lower level of Town Hall

Manchester DMV — 377 S. Willow St., Manchester Commons

Concord DMV — 23 Hazen Drive

Epping DMV — 315 State Route 125

Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, although appointments are first come, first served. Road test applicants must show up before 3:30 p.m., although they are encouraged to arrive much earlier.

May 18, 2008
Concord Monitor

Questions raised about NH retirement system trustees’ travel

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — At a time when the retirement fund for New Hampshire’s public employees is struggling financially, the board that controls it continues spending taxpayer money to send its members to faraway training conferences.

Documents requested by the Concord Monitor show that the New Hampshire Retirement System has paid thousands of dollars in recent years for trustees to attend conferences in other countries, including an investment trade show in Italy and a hedge fund meeting in the Czech Republic. Somersworth Police Chief Dean Crombie, a board member who has traveled to conferences in France, Portugal and Spain, won approval last week to travel to Ireland.

In 2006, the system spent $57,000 on travel for trustees and staffers, $5,000 over budget. The 2008 trustee travel budget is $21,800. That money comes from the retirement fund’s coffers, paid by taxpayers and public employees. Meanwhile, the system is $2.7 billion short on its long-term liabilities and is among the worst-off state plans in the nation.

Changes are afoot. The board is reconsidering its travel policies and has a new chairwoman and a new executive director.

“We have a new executive director, and we’ve tasked her with reviewing our policies and coming up with a recommendation that takes into account past criticisms and best practices, and we look at that at the June board meeting,” said chairwoman Lisa Shapiro.

In addition to the trips paid for by the state, trustees also have taken trips paid for by businesses and other organizations.

In 1995, a state audit found that trustees had violated the system’s code of ethics by taking thousands of dollars worth of trips to Ireland paid for by the Bank of Ireland, which managed some of the fund’s investments. Another group helped foot the bill for a trustee’s 11-day trip to China. A decade later, in 2004, the longtime chairman of the board, Edward Theobald, was removed amid allegations that he had not disclosed perks he was offered by a company seeking investment from the board. The deal still is under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Crombie, the Somersworth police chief, defended his travel by saying the conferences are the way he educates himself. He goes to about one conference a year, and said lawmakers have urged him to attend more.

“That was a big thin in the Senate: You have to go to more conferences. Education, education, education,” he said.

He said it has been helpful to meet board members from other states and hear about how better-off pension systems operate. But asked what he took away from his trip to Lisbon, Crombie quipped: “I took back a bottle of wine.”

And from France? “Two bottles of wine.”