Candidate Night- advocacy and accuracy

Thanks to the folks of the Greater Hyannis Civic Association for organizing the candidates night.

The questions from the audience and moderator were excellent. I especially appreciated the fact that two young people attended and asked questions relating to bus fees,the PM school, and graduation rates. I made two suggestions on how folks interested in these topics could continue their advocacy.

1. If interested in graduation rates and the PM school topic please attend the Nov. 7th summit at CCCC presented by the Cape and Islands WorkForce Investment Board.

2.Transportation issues come down to money. It has been mentioned the State is discussing providing more aide to districts to ameliorate these costs. Please talk with your State Rep. on this topic.

One of the challenges of being an elected official is finding ways to make sure that accurate information gets out to the public. People can have opinions but facts are facts.

There are rumors being started that the School Department faces a 3 million dollar shortfall going into FY 2008/2009. This is simply not true.

1.Revenue estimates for 2006/2007 were conservative. The Municipal/School Savings accounts are expected to be replenished to some extent when this FY closes...Oct 1st.

2. Revenue estimates going forward can be expected to be in the range of 2.5-3% increase.

3. We are closing a school to save money.

4. Enrollment declines means that we will need to replace fewer teachers.

The budget process work.

Endorsement and Debate appreciation

Thanks to the folks from Citizens for Barnstable for their endorsement. I don't know much about the organization but like their mission statement.I appreciate the fact they care enough to come out and make a statement.

Also, I would like to thank everyone from the Greater Hyannis Civic Association for hosting a Candidates Night on Thursday September 27th at the Hyannis West Elementary School. I've accepted the invitation and look forward to a healthy discussion.

Why am I running again?

Over the next two months this site will serve as the go to spot for my local campaign efforts. I was encouraged to set up the site as a campaign site after a close friend referred to me as The School Committee Guy. It was meant to be a flattering comment but the point was made that folks across the community may not really know me.

So, the side column of the site has my picture, background biographical information, and links to organizations on which I serve as a Board member and the technology firm that I've cofounded. The bottom footer lists a few books that I like. It's not a perfect way to learn about someone but reading lists do provide a glimpse into an individual's way of thinking about the world.

Given my personal, professional experiences and four years of of service on the School Committee I know that I am qualified to serve another term on the School Commitee. However, when it comes to most things in life nowadays resumes aren't enough.

Why am I running again? What do I want to work on accomplishing over the next four years?

I have several major areas of focus and listed them in the candidate survey provided by the Barnstable Patriot.
Over the next few weeks I will describe them in more detail.

Candidate surveys and accurate budget information

Thanks to the Barnstable Patriot for starting thedotcommons.com. This is a web forum attempting to bring together all the candidate and election information for the upcoming local elections. Within the forum is a section that asks candidates to fill out a survey. The survey for school committee asks the standard questions for the most part.

However, there is one question that leads candidates to propose cuts in school services based upon an assumption of a shortfall for the Fiscal Year 2008-2009. What is remarkable about this question is the fact that the professional budget experts from our consolidated municipal/school finance department have never come out with any statements predicting or warning of a shortfall for FY 2008/2009.

My response to the question is it made a false assumption about local, state, federal revenue growth. We also all understand that decreasing student populations allow for a reduction in staff numbers. Over the past few years, we have done a good job of reducing staff by not hiring too many new folks even though there have been significant retirements.We are always conservative with our revenue estimates and have asked each site based program to take responsibility for living within their spending plan.

Municipal/School budgets and fiscal years are very complex and take a long time to officially close out. My sense is the close of FY 2006/2007 fiscal year by October 1st,2007 will provide us positive news. Let the data come out before making assumptions.

Although, we will not be able to do everything that everybody wants with our operating budgets over the next few years..like reducing or eliminating all fees, adding all desired positions, adding all the desired technology, etc.. we are on pace to support excellent schools and live within our budgets.

From an operating budget perspective we do have a good handle on things. I would suggest a better question is to begin a discussion of how the entire Town is going to pay for needed Capital improvements. What are we going to leave for the next generation of Barnstable citizens and school children? That is a question requiring lots of conversation.