I hope Jaffrey and Rindge Cooperative School District voters will join me Tuesday March 11, in supporting the School Board’s position on two high-stakes questions affecting the future of the educational program.

First, vote yes on Article II to agree with the School Board’s proposal for an improved Career and Technical Education Center. Second, please vote no on Article III to agree with the School Board’s rejection of a deliberative session $3 million cut in the board’s originally proposed operating budget.

The CTE proposal takes full advantage of more than $16 million of one-time state CTE capital budget funding to reconstruct and expand the existing site at Conant Middle High School. This is an exciting project that by all accounts will be of great benefit to future students and their families.

The challenge posed by the proposed $3 million operating budget cut is complex and difficult. The board’s original proposed budget was already about $100,000 below the district’s so-called default budget (a legal term referencing the prior year’s budget adjusted by a state-mandated formula). The board and staff have been working night and day to identify cuts at the $3 million level, but are convinced that cuts deeper than about $700,000 would throw the district’s education system into a hard-to-reverse tailspin harmful to its students.

It is because of these realities that I will vote no, believing that small spending reductions may be realized and returned to taxpayers by the board within the default budget framework.

The difficult property tax realities facing both towns are a direct consequence of the state’s failure to meet its constitutional school funding obligations. Small increments may be achieved in the current state budget, but we need to do much better.

State Rep.Dick Ames

Jaffrey and Dublin