Too Drastic
Claremont Voters Defeat Budget Cap Article
Also on today’s menu at the News Café:
Newfound Voters Nix Budget And Cost-Saving Projects
Ripple Effects Of Trump’s Iran War Become Clearer
Voters in Claremont defeated a petitioned article that would have limited annual school budget increases by basing expenditures on the prior year’s per-pupil spending, adjusted for daily enrollment and the region’s inflation rate. Passage would have required a 60 percent majority, but the article lost in all three wards, 560-1,345.
School board member Candy Crawford said that, once voters learned the impact of the change, “they did not want to support that kind of devastating effect it would have on the schools”. According to SAU 6’s interim business administrator, Matt Angell, had the article been in effect today, the school district would have to reduce spending by $9 million.
Emily Sandblade, one of the leaders promoting the spending cap, said the article’s opponents “managed to scare people into believing what the school board told them. It was scare tactics.”
Newfound Voters Nix Budget And Cost-Saving Projects
Voters in the Newfound Area School District defeated an article that would have rescinded its tax cap, which limits the increase in town assessments in support of schools to 2 percent after adjusting for enrollment and inflation.
Budget-conscious voters also defeated the proposed operating budget of $28,346,133, which puts in place a default budget of $27,095,962.73. Voters at the deliberative session had increased the originally proposed budget beyond the amount allowed by the tax cap to preserve existing programs and administrative raises. The school board now will have to decide how to keep spending within the default budget amount.
Voters also defeated an article to install a $1,184,730 roof-mounted solar array for the high school at a time when grant funding is still available to offset a portion of the cost, with the aim of reducing the cost of electricity ; and a $1,067,570 LED light installation that would have reduced electricity usage.
All other articles passed, including the cost items in a new three-year teachers’ contract and a $6,156,217 replacement of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system at the high school.
Ripple Effects Of Trump’s Iran War Become Clearer
The Pentagon told Congress that the United States spent $11.3 billion in the first week of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran — $5 billion on munitions alone during the first weekend’s attack.
CitiBank reacted to Iran’s threat to retaliate against financial institutions by saying it would close all branches in the United Arab Emirates except one. Other financial institutions have urged their staff to work from home because of the threat.
US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced that the United States will release 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of the International Energy Agency’s efforts to combat the steep increase in oil prices due to the Iran war. The IEA has called for the largest volume release in its history.
Iranian state-linked media have published a list of offices and infrastructure operated by US companies with Israeli links, such as Google, Microsoft, Palantir, IBM, Nvidia, and Oracle, whose technology has been used for military applications.
At a time when US citizens are seeking answers about the war’s justification and plans to end it, the Defense Department is further restricting reporters’ access, preventing photographers from attending its briefings, reportedly because Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s staff has deemed the photos in the press to be “unflattering” to their boss. The Pentagon has not provided an official explanation for excluding photographers from Hegseth’s last two briefings on the war.