Woodstock CT Café

Hmm RC, Let’s not start comparing bus expenses from different years, shall we?  We don’t know what happened to the price of buses from year to year or if they had the same features.  I mean, if what you are saying is true I’d have a choice of paying $1500 today for a new TV or $400 for the next three years.  Less money and I get to finance, why would anyone every buy outright!  Sounds too good to be true and I want a free lunch too!

Let’s take a look at what happened this year, same bus features, same year, etc.  I don’t have the figures in front of me so forgive me if I get something wrong.  So our original budget the bus was $75,000 (less than your 07/08 bus figure, is something fishy there?).  So instead we shaved $48,000 off the budget by going into a three year lease.  So let’s see $75,000 – $48,000 (the savings we get this year for leasing) gives a per year cost of $27,000 for the lease.  Three years that makes it $27,000 X 3 or $81,000.  Now that’s a leasing company that’s going to say in business, its almost as if (gasp) they want to make some money for financing the purchase.

BTW, any increase in the budget due to transportation increases does not go solely to the BOE in subsequent years, the town gets a slice of that pie too.  A bad thing if those expenses stay around year over year.  Not a good design.

As far as your statement, “Actually only $2,000 will be cut as the BOE is not LOSING anything with the $48,000 portion of the cut/reduction. They will still get those buses. It’s a beautiful thing.” … are you kidding me?  Read the rest of this entry »

The lease/purchase bus option has been a red herring that has been beaten to death for years by the CPS crowd.  I remember Jay Livernois, Gus Massiello and Preston Schultz ranting and raving about this in BOE/BOF meetings in the good old days of “Comings and Goings”.  Like these CPS Founding Fathers, Reality Check is using this phony issue to attack the BOE with false suggestions of financial waste, fraud and abuse.  When asked to support her accusations, she engages in a pattern of such obfuscation as to make one wonder if she is completely confused, simply lying, or both.  It is amazing to me that this attitude toward public education in this town has been devolved to a whole new generation of stupid, sick people. 

Oddly, Reality Check never seems willing to extend her investigatory determination to the many questionable expenditures by Woodstock Academy, including their rapidly growing expenditures on international junkets for top administrators.  That is because Woodstock Academy has co-opted the CPS crowd with its Trustee positions, and used its considerable payroll to convert would-be critics in the politiscal system into supporters.  One example of this is the Academy’s newly hired basketball coach, who was fired from this position several years ago for being verbally abusive with his players, but who was re-hired after his wife demonstrated her own considerable skills at verbal abuse over the past year with the Woodstock BOE.

The Academy continues to protect its financial interests the old fashioned way, including (i) use of public funds to provide positive public relations through public and its own multiple private media outlets; (ii) use of the third-party CPS crowd to attack its competitor for educational funds at the BOE in order to maximize the Academy’s own take from the annual budget; (iii) planting of multiple relatives of Trustees on key town boards, including BOE and BOF; (iv) use of public funds in the form of the school’s payroll to reward its political supporters; and (v) the recent takover of the Democratic Town Committee by Academy Trustee James Kaeding, his wife Margie Wholean and Becky Hyde, daughter of former Trustee Elizabeth Hyde who is permanently honored with a brass fountain in the lobby of her namesake Hyde Auditorium. Read the rest of this entry »

PROMENADE IN THE PARK – Saturday, April 26, 10 a.m. at Roseland Park.

Roseland Park has been the site of many historic celebrations, including those hosted in the 19th century by Henry C. Bowen, whose Independence Day festivities were famous. Cheryl Wakely and Lyn Cole-Smith will lead a moderate, 1 hour walk, and highlight it with stories and over 40 old photos. Step back into an earlier era and enjoy the view from Eliot Hill and the scenery around the pond, which is all that remains of a large, ancient lake. Traditional Bowen family refreshments of pink lemonade and cookies will be served on the deck. The park is located on Roseland Park Road. Please park next to the barn and meet at the boathouse. Sponsored by the Woodstock Historical Society. Free and open to the public. Directions here: http://www.woodstockct.gov/More/RoselandPark/tabid/301/Default.aspx

Doug Zimmerman
860.974.3020
Woodstock Historical Society Program Chair

From the Minutes of the Special Meeting for the Board of Selectmen on Friday, April 11, 2008 at 10:30 AM held in the Selectmen’s Conference Room

Board of Selectmen – $3,977 (Reduction of part-time staff 2.5 hours per week )
Boards & Commissions – $31,910 (Deletion of Regional Engineering – a new program)
Fire Protection Association – $7,000 (Bungay Brigade received grant for Personal Protection Equipment)
Public Health, Recreation & Welfare Boards & Commissions – $22,332
$13,895 Town Beach
$1,976 Contractual Youth Service
$6,461 Libraries (May, West & North will receive $15,894 – Bracken will receive $10,504)

Total reductions are $65,219. There were a couple of increases as well.

Data Processing – $10,000 (New software needed in the finance office – will help with initial fee.)
Insurance & Employment Benefits – $5,219 (Increase due to health insurance stipend & additional cost for the town’s portion of the MERF benefit.)

These increases reduce the reductions by $15,219 for a Grand Total of $50,000 in reductions. The General Government Budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2008/2009 will be $5,883,725.

The current General Government Budget is available (as are other budget related documents) on the town website under the Board of Finance’s ‘News’ tab.

At the direction of the Board of Finance the Woodstock Board of Education cut their proposed 2008/2009 budget by $50,000. At the special meeting on Thursday, April 10th, Superintendent Baran articulated three options for reducing the budget by the required amount.

The Superintendent, Dr. Baran, produced three options for the Board of Education to vote on. His recommendation was to choose Option III which was an option to lease-purchase a large bus rather than purchase the school bus outright. He noted that he doesn’t like the idea of financing the purchase, but by doing so the district would be able to accomplish the mandated reduction, not run the risk of under-funding the health insurance account and would minimize any negative impact on our students (the latter two were the other options). The members of the board voted unanimously to accept the Superintendent’s recommendation to achieve the reduction mandated by the Board of Finance.

The three options were as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

A $250,000 grant for the Woodstock Highway Facility. See the Norwich Bull.

These are the fire incidents in Woodstock in 2007.

On Thursday, April 10th all three of Woodstock’s Fire Departments, Woodstock Volunteer, Bungay Brigade and Muddy Brook responded to a structure fire at 17 Bassett Hill Rd. The 2-alarm fire completely consumed the structure owned since September 2005 by Bernard and Sharon Lapierre.

Our town firemen in action. The first responder was the Woodstock Volunteer Fire Association from South Woodstock (near the Town Hall). Mutual aid was received from Bungay Fire Brigade and the Muddy Brook Fire Department.
Read the rest of this entry »

See the article “I see dead people” … After almost two years, it’s still relevant.

There were two odd ‘news’ articles in the Villager today. First the Villager announced its “…Launch of Signature Campaign” to earn a lower postal rate. Second, Headmaster Foye announced that he believes in free speech.

RE: The Villager’s “Little Fib” 

Regarding the Signature Campaign, it’s gratifying to learn that the Villager wishes to receive a document from every citizen in Woodstock as well as those in surrounding towns. The paper could do some interesting stuff with the signatures by enrolling a handwriting specialist to analyze them for marketing purposes.

I’ve attended a seminar on handwriting analysis and it’s remarkable what these experts can derive from a person’s handwriting, especially the signature. In the seminar I attended, all of us were asked to write our signature and add a number that only the author would recognize. Then the speaker proceeded to characterize each anonymous signature revealing the number so the author knew he was talking about him/her. Needless to say that I was gratified by the accurate praise he gave me, otherwise I would not bring this up. When we were writing our samples, I glanced over to my neighbor and noticed her number, so I waited patiently to hear what he said about her. It wasn’t nice. I became a believer because his characterization of this poor woman was spot on.

When I saw the demand by the Villager for our demographics and signature, in order for us to receive the Villager, I thought “here’s an excellent opportunity to decline receiving this paper.” Afterall, if I get starved for reading material I can always access the paper on the Internet. However, don’t expect to see Villager articles show up in RSS feeds like the two on the lower right sidebar. The Villager’s archaic website won’t be picked up by search engines because its not written in HTML.

A substantial portion of the Woodstock populous considers the Villager trash. Just go to the post office on Friday or Saturday and peer into the trash cans. It’s sad because of all the dead trees and toxic dyes…. and then there’s the trash in Walter Bird’s editorials and Sound Offs by the baser elements of Woodstock, Thompson, Pomfret, Killingly, and Eastford. Read the rest of this entry »

We have had visitors from these locations but >90% are from Woodstock and surrounding towns.

Rain is coming and since there is honor among all bloggers, the Cafe thought that we should preserve Ernie St. Jean’s current Blackboard Blog in perpetuity. Speed reading is not my forte so, as I drove by Ernie’s blog this morning, all I saw was “$250,000″ in one big blurr. So the Cafe sent it’s ace reporter, Jennica Heifer, out on the road to capture Ernie’s message for the sake of the entire town – McMansionites, CPS’ers, Democrats, Republicans, Elitists, Woodstockistanni’s, farmers, liberal left wingers, non-liberal right wingers, teenage drivers, and Swamp Yankees alike.

 Since rain is coming, this might become a washout.

The Cafe discovered this South Woodstock company recently in an RSS feed of industry news in Woodstock and surrounding towns (see this article). Here is Flight Design’s website.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the Telegram: “The headmaster said the school … termed the $25,000 a donation instead of a payment in lieu of taxes, such as the state gives the town for the land it owns.”

The budget number was set tonight at the Board of Finance meeting.

The 2008/2009 budget will be $21,539,238. The estimated mil rate will be 17.95 (preliminary calculations by me – official/exact figure will follow when published).

That figure is $10,708 less than the maximum allowable under the restrictions of Proposition 46. In order to reach that figure the Board of Finance voted to cut the proposed budget by $100,000. The Boards of Selectmen and Education will each have to make cuts of $50,000.

Noted exceptions to Proposition 46 were increases in Special Education, the Bennett Farm remediation and revaluation costs. Increases in Transportation costs are also exempt from Prop 46, but as there was a decrease in the transportation so it wasn’t included in this year’s exemptions.

The board voted to include the entire revaluation cost in this year’s budget by increasing the General Government budget by $125,000 but balancing the impact by withdrawing $125,000 from the general fund to cover the increase.

The Board of Finance noted that both budgets submitted to them were maintenance budgets and that both boards made notable efforts to control costs. Also observed was that what we are seeing is the impact of increasing insurance, oil, and fuel costs combined with the addition of a paid EMS service.

The Pomfret news feed below has an article posted at the Bentley College athletic website opining their loss in tennis to Merrimack College. John Seaward from Pomfret and the Academy, a Junior at Merrimack, plays second singles and first doubles on the Merrimack tennis team. He won both his singles match and doubles match to help Merrimack beat Bentley 5-4. John’s overall singles record is 5-3 and his doubles record is 3-1. John is majoring in Psychology and Business. Good job, John
Read the rest of this entry »

 Parallel to the forest fires of the West, gossip blazes across the Woodstock Academy campus faster than a torrential rain on an open campus could ever extinguish it. This day presents rumors of faculty and staff. According to the hearsay I hear from my friend while walking to Spanish, (I’ll make no claim to its validity; I copy the words exactly as I hear them) it seems that the Gay-Straight Alliance, a club that encourages the wellbeing of both heterosexuals and homosexuals, wanted to participate in the nation wide day of silence. This silent protest is meant to serve as a reminder of all those who were required to silence desires in order to maintain safety while in high school. The day serves as a memorial to all those who were victims of hate crimes. By all accounts, this protest seems honorable and mature. For a teenager to recognize the adversity of fellow teenagers … that empathy should be fostered. Yet instead, the faculty is called to an emergency meeting to discuss how to best quell the event.

 While la señora turns her attention to the board, the girl to my left continues the story. It seems that a certain Headmaster has received calls from local churches that claim the day would “promote homosexuality.” As such, the Headmaster of a public, religiously unaffiliated school issued a statement that the GSA could not hold the day of remembrance. The fire shines in my friend’s eyes. Clearly, this is an issue close to the hearts of many here. She doesn’t say it, but I can see that this is a personal issue. So often I offer consolation to my dear friend, yet I find that today I cannot find the right words to comfort her. My own emotions swell. It’s not anger, not relief, and most certainly not compliance that consume my mind. Spanish class muddles my conscience. I need time to think in silence. The bell rings. Once, Spanish is over. Twice, now chemistry. Again, the bell tolls as English ends. Now it is 2:14. 2:15. At last, the final ring; freedom from the animosities of the day and release from the facts presented from all angles. Read the rest of this entry »

Just wanted to clarify the question about budgeting for fuel. The fuel depot gas and diesel accounts are simply “pass-through” accounts – a place where we can pay for the fuel purchased and then bill the public schools, the Academy, fire depts and ambulance service for the fuel that they use. If you look on the revenue sheet you will see that an equivalent amount of money is listed as income. At any point during the year the fuel depot line items will appear to be overspent due to timing of the billing to other users. Fuel that is used in the operation of the Highway Dept appears in the highway budget. Hope this information helps.

Barbara Rich

Thanks Barbara. Admin

Below is the “Fuel Depot Budget” within the town operating budget (proposed for 2008-09) which cites the fuel budget for this current fiscal year and expenditures on fuel from July ’07 through Feb. ’08. It shows that by the end of February ’08 diesel costs had already exceeded the budgeted amount by $15,644.43. This may be understandable given the rise in fuel costs since March 2007 when this budget was formulated by Ms. Wholean. However, note that next year’s proposed budget is only $15,000.

How could this be?

Why would our Selectmen underbudget the fuel costs, when it is unlikely that these costs will go down? This kind of budgeting, or lack thereof, is hard to fathom given the numbers staring us in the face. What could be the justification for not estimating fuel costs reasonably?

Ahh, I see what happened here.  The package of Mr. Richardson’s spreadsheet that was distributed at the BOE meeting had two pages stapled together.  The first was his spreadsheet.  The second of several year’s budgets including a very early version of the 08-09 budget.  Unfortunately, this is not the same version of the 08-09 budget as he used in his spreadsheet.  I don’t know why the second sheet had been attached to the first when they were two different versions of the same year budget but when the numbers for the high school tuition didn’t line up the reason that presented itself to me was that he didn’t include SPED or transportation, as that has been done several times in the past.  Now I see that the stapled together packet had two versions of the 08-09 budget without explanation or annotation that I can find.  My mistake.

Having said that my other criticisms still stand.  For example, some of the greatest year over year increase has been in SPED.  This year is no exception.  SPED costs are outside the control of the citizens of Woodstock and the BOE.  How much they will be from year to year is a crap shoot.  This is part of the reason why such mandated costs are given special handling under prop 46.  Ms. Paul’s numbers attempt to pull out the SPED costs for K-8 and see what the percent increase is year over year for things that are more under our control.  She also looks at what the SPED cost increase has been year over year to illustrate how high these can be. Read the rest of this entry »