A Tale of a Small NH. Town & the Unraveling of Community

Once again, on March 11, in Kensington and many small towns like ours in NH, just 1/3 of the voting population showed up to vote on essential items like budgets, spending, and taxes.

In my last 37 years here in Kensington, citizens, young and old, rich and poor, have made unequaled Investments in education, yet never before has our investment vs. cost to invest reached 75 % of all tax revenue.

After a review of marginal student performance and the declining enrollments (from approx 225 – 147 today), along with the unchecked growth of the administration costs and benefits Vs ratio to students, was in fact the basis for this Warrant Article. This is the 1st time in Kensington’s history that there was a proposal to simply try to start to bend the cost curve.

Warrant Article #19  To: Seek the official endorsement of the citizens and taxpayers of Kensington  (Stakeholders) to establish a multidisciplinary volunteer Task Force ( no cost to the town) to identify short and long-term efficiencies, cost savings, and opportunities. To responsibly reduce tax burdens vs related  SAU 16 school administration and cost controls. (Not teacher salaries)

It fell short of official endorsement, but as we move ahead in our research and study, we will submit reports to the school board and citizens toward this goal. We have already identified what we believe to be an overall possible 35% tax savings to Kensington citizens in the 2027-2028 timeline by simply combining East Kingston’s average eight students per class with our average fourteen, which equals 22 students per class. As a matter of tax dollars, they would, in essence, give us tuition to reduce our overhead and administration costs. (Same SAU16) * 2025 Kes. – Budget Research provided below.

We can espouse to the feel-good buzz words “building community,” but we can no longer sit on the sidelines believing the courts or an income tax will somehow save public education. Especially with these drivers of accelerating costs combined with the neglect/ or measure of efficiency or excellence. (* Not a direct comparison  Kensington K-5 student cost per student  $31,400  vs UNH 19,500 in state.)

Fear mongering or thinking if we can just obstruct or shut down ideas, is like holding a beach ball underwater – it eventually explodes to the surface.

Please support, join, and be open to our research and ideas as we present them in the future.

Respectfully to All

We’d like to thank BAl Brandano for this Op-Ed. As a reminder, authors’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers. Submit Op-Eds to steve@granitegrok.com

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