Windham Taxpayers

July 11, 2008
Boston Globe

CONCORD, N.H.—Twelve New Hampshire towns will get another year to start kindergarten programs.

Gov. John Lynch signed a law Friday that extends the deadline and provides extra financial help to the towns.

The Legislature included public kindergarten as a requirement for all schools in the definition of an adequate education adopted last year. That law gave communities without kindergarten until September 2008 to offer programs. They now have an extra year.

The towns are Hudson, Litchfield, Lyndeborough, Mascenic, Mason, Milford, Pelham, Auburn, Chester, Derry, Salem and Windham.

The state is giving the towns multiple options to get programs started.

The towns can contract with private kindergarten providers for three years. They also can get state help leasing portable classrooms for up to four years.

The towns also have a choice of school building aid programs to add kindergarten classrooms. The state will pay 75 percent of the cost of a custom designed building. Or, the state will pay 100 percent of the cost for a basic design approved by the state.

The provision to pay 100 percent was included after critics questioned the constitutionality of the state imposing a mandate on the towns without funding it. The state will not pay to buy land for classrooms.

The state also will pay to furnish the classrooms.

The towns also will start getting school aid for the kindergarten pupils.

School districts not starting programs this fall must submit a plan to the state by December on how they will implement programs for the 2009-2010 school year.

The state estimates it will cost $20 million to help the towns start programs.

The new law also suspends a law that requires property rich towns to pay excess state property taxes for redistribution to poorer towns. The suspension would last through Fiscal 2011. The provision was left out of the new school financing law enacted this year.

The financing law keeps aid levels essentially the same until two new commissions can study whether more changes in school funding are needed.

No towns would get less aid in 2010 and 2011 than they get next year. Those expecting windfalls under the new system would see their increases capped at 15 percent during the two-year transition.

July 6, 2008
Eagle Tribune

WINDHAM — A widened Interstate 93 between Salem and Manchester will presumably carry travelers to destinations safer and sooner.

The town of Windham will soon decide whether to burrow under the old highway, building a passageway or conduit to carry utilities and attract commercial development to the northern part of town.

One proposed location is north of Route 111, in the area of the weigh stations at the side of I-93.

One thing is for sure, according to local officials, if the town wants the conduit installed, it’s only practical to do it before the two lanes are widened to four on each side of the highway. Digging up a new highway wouldn’t be an option.

In any event, the state Department of Transportation needs a decision soon on whether the town wants the conduit. That’s because the highway project will soon go out to bid and the underground work needs to be part of the design, according to I-93 project leader Peter Stamnas.

“We need to meet immediately,” he told Windham selectmen on June 23.

Town officials and Stamnas expect to sit down by mid-month and talk about the project. They also will talk about who would pay for it — the town, the state or both.

The price, which town highway agent Jack McCartney estimated at $50,000, would include the cost of the materials — a concrete or metal pipe at least 36 inches in diameter — and its installation.

The conduit has strong support on the Board of Selectmen, Selectman Charlie McMahon among them.

A conduit for sewer, water or utilities is critical to the long-term economic tax base of the town, McMahon said.

Board Chairman Dennis Senibaldi said the town has to plan for the future.

“And if this is an opportunity to bring in water and sewer, then it could be integral to expanding the commercial tax base in the future,” Senibaldi said.

Conventional wisdom holds that municipal water and sewer attract the interest of developers, because they do not have to rely on septic systems and wells.

Meanwhile, town planning director Al Turner said the conduit could be used to carry something in the future that hasn’t even been conceived of yet. Who would have foreseen the interest in fiber-optic cable years ago?

The conduit idea was first floated almost a decade ago, when the I-93 project was in the conception stage, according to Turner and McCartney.

They recalled state officials saying the state would pay to install the conduit if the town paid for the materials.

But Stamnas told selectmen recently that he believes the town would be responsible for both the conduit and its installation.

To that, Selectman Roger Hohenberger said he distinctly remembers the state agreeing that it would pay for the work.

Stamnas said he would find out more about whose responsibility payment would be.

If the town does have to pony up for the project, it remains to be seen whether townspeople would agree to do so. They would decide at Town Meeting, Town Administrator Dave Sullivan said.

July 5, 2008
Eagle Tribune

WINDHAM — The Board of Selectmen recommends raising the cost of capital improvement program items from at least $50,000 to $100,000.

The increase is a means of designating smaller items as operating budget line items while targeting bigger ones for the capital improvement program.

The board voted this week to send a letter to the Planning Board recommending the change. The CIP committee members, appointed by the Planning Board, hear requests for proposals before indicating their support or opposition.

Meanwhile, the selectmen will instruct department heads to bring forth proposals of $100,000 or more.

The program sets forth a plan for capital expenditures over six years.

Selectman Bruce Breton presented the increase proposal, saying it allows department heads to make smaller items as part of the budget if the selectmen approve of the spending.

Selectmen’s Chairman Dennis Senibaldi said the increase will give the selectmen more oversight of spending at a time when taxes are rising.

Selectmen will review the smaller spending items, relegated to the budget, and not all of them will survive the review, Senibaldi said.

“Some items just won’t pass muster,” he said in an interview.

The chairman said the capital improvement program should be for big-ticket items such as new firetrucks or building expansions.

“It brings the CIP back to its original roots, not a wish list,” he said.

Selectman Roger Hohenberger opposed the increase, saying the program has worked well in the past.