On December 13th Franklin will again be asked to vote on a referendum to fund the building of a stadium for the new high school. When the voters originally passed the referendum to build the high school it included a stadium but when construction ran into budget overruns the stadium was cut to meet cost.

The BOE now wants to build the stadium. Last May in a referendum that accompanied the $116 Million budget the BOE ask voters to fund the stadium. That referendum also included funding for improvements to other schools including air conditioning. It did not pass.

This time the referendum does not include the other improvements and centers on the stadium. If the referendum passes the homeowner of the average house ($310K) will pay an extra $25 in taxes per year. Voters should know that if the referendum passes by May they will see another referendum for the improvements to other schools. It will increase taxes about $40 per year.

Voters should also know that the BOE contemplates strategies that will get their referenda passed by the voters. Strategies that have been discussed include: introducing the two referendums as one large one vs. two smaller referendums vs. one referendum at a time separated by 90 days. The discussion centered on what strategy would most likely get the budgets passed as opposed to how to best inform the public so they can decide. One BOE member has even voiced that he/she would like to keep introducing the budgets every 90 days (the fastest allowed by law) despite the cost of $20K-$30K to run the election. In the end they decided to offer the referendum in December. January was not considered favorable because that is when tax bills are distributed.

TUF is torn on this one. In May 2005 TUF advocated to vote against the budget but vote for the referendum stating that every student in Franklin will use the stadium eventually and that the community can use the stadium on weekends.

However TUF is concerned that the BOE has become arrogant with the use of community money. We don't come to this opinion lightly; in the Past 5 months Phillip Kramer has attended most BOE meetings and has made five requests. The BOE has agreed to three, we will discuss them in another article. But to the other requests, 1) to allow an outside and independent operational examination of the budget and 2) to televise the BOE meetings, the BOE has said "no".

They will not allow an outside operational examination because they believe that it is impossible that they are misspending any of the $116M budget and that examination itself will cost too much. TUF contends that if an examination cost $50,000 and found even a 0.1% error then Franklin would save $50,000 beyond the costs of the investigation. While we believe the every member of the BOE means well, it is hubristic to believe that they cannot make a mistake. It also appears that they don't want people looking over their shoulder, either in their preparation of the budget or at their meetings. They have all of the equipment that they need to broadcast the meetings, cost would be minimal and they constantly bemoan that not enough people come to the meetings.

TUF would like to send the BOE a message and at this time we advocate to vote NO now and on every future referendum and budget until the BOE agrees to open their budget to review and their meeting to the airwaves.

The bond was defeated. The BOE has considered presenting it again, for the third time.

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