The Hamilton FinCom voted to support the school budget as proposed at their meeting on May 10. The tax rate in Hamilton went up last year despite a decrease in the school funding and will go up this year despite no increase. The recent increase in taxes can not be attributed to school costs.
Please do not mislead the voters with incorrect information.

You must have missed Monday's Board of Selectman's meeting. See if you can catch it on HamWenCam.org and listen to what Deborah Mena, our finance director, had to say about how Hamilton's share of the $500k giveback could lower the tax rate. That's the correct information.

As far as your statement that "recent increases in taxes can not be attributed to school costs"... you seem to have forgotten that school past overrides account for nearly $7 million each and every year in school district funding. Not to mention that we STILL outspend peer school districts by nearly $2 million a year.

Really Tracy? We've all heard the protests before about how the school budget is "cut to the bone" and last year we were told that returning $500k of $1 million in unspent funds would result in a catastrophe this year equivalent to "falling off a cliff". And yet there's "$3 million of fiscal error or misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the current year's budget". That is what is shameful. Taxpayers do not believe the story line anymore.

There is a child in a wheelchair who needs to be accommodated, and the repairs need to be completed this summer. I suppose people could vote against this if they wish, but that's not the Hamilton I know.

Again, Jay, it is very confusing when you throw out facts that just are not true. Please explain "$3million of fiscal error or misunderstanding...of the current year's budget." There is $1.5 mil of E&D (basically 5% of operating cost...Per Deb Mena's presentation to the Hamilton BOS on 4/30/12 Manchester-Essex had 4.5% in E&D in 2010 and Masco has a policy to keep E&D at 4%, so this is well within "normal" range.) The majority of these funds are being used to off-set the tax rate that would have resulted from increases in this year's contractual obligations.
The school district expects to use $600K in unspent funds from prior years tuition collected for Kindergarten and Pre-school (this may be an error, but it does not accumulate to $3mil).
Also remember that Hamilton maintains a free cash and stabilization fund equal to roughly 5% and 2.3% respectively, so there's plenty of "slush fund" money floating around at Town Hall, too. That's also called savings which improves bond rates.
Please try to use facts instead of inflated myths.

Tracy...You try too hard to mislead, and shamefully I might add. The vote isn't about not helping someone in a wheelchair...it's about the school district already having sufficient funds to do the necessary work. The Cutler School Boiler issue comes to mind and is a case in point. We were assured there were insufficient funds to replace the boiler and we all now know that simply was not true. Fool me once....

As I said before Michelle...Please take the time to watch the Monday night meeting and all will be made clear to you. The quote is by John McWane, the Chairman of our FinCom. He explains it fully. You need to watch the video. And please stop distorting the facts with fuzzy math and non-related issues. Haven't you heard? That doesn't work anymore.

Not bonding the Cutler Boiler saved the towns $100,000 in fees and interest. Why are you complaining about that?
The MSBA funded 40+% of the Cutler Boiler. In order to get that funding the school district had to prove they could pay for the full cost of the project, $1.3mil. At the time they considered using E&D funds, but they could not because they had already encumbered them to pay for the HS/MS waste-water treatment plant required by the MassDEP.
Lucky for us, the waste-water treatment plant was a less expensive fix and the Cutler Boiler was substantially paid for by the state. That meant the SC had more funds available than they had expected (THAT'S GOOD NEWS!!!)

No Michelle...Not bonding for something that you already have the funds to pay for does not SAVE the taxpayers anything. Talk about SPIN! Now that everyone knows bonding the Cutler boiler, which we were told was absolutely necessary because there was NO OTHER MONEY available, was in fact UNTRUE... and you have the audacity to suggest now that SAVED us $100k?

NEW IDEA: Why not apply for a new bond for say $7 million...not use it...and then tell everyone we should be overjoyed because we just saved $1 million in fees and interest?

What a ridiculous notion.

What? Can someone translate? haha.

Once again...Allow me to thank the voters for their wisdom in the school committee elections last year. Evidently, the message did not sink in with some.