As a member of the 2025 SMS Financial Advisory Committee (FAC) analyzing the 2025-2026 SMS Operational Budget I was part of a 5-person committee who closely analyzed the proposed budget, asked questions of the SMS administration and SAU 16 Superintendent office staff regarding the budget, took input from members of the public, and carefully evaluated expenses proposed by SMS.

After the school board implemented their early retirement offering this reduced the original 25-26 operating budget from nearly 5% to 2.7% year-over-year and after meeting with the FAC multiple times over the course of budget season, listening to public comment sessions, and collaborating with the admin and SMS board, I voted as part of the 4-1 FAC majority to recommend that the board approve the proposed operating budget to ensure there would be no additional impact to teachers or school programming. Keeping in mind this budget is still under final inflation numbers (2.9%) for 2024.

As a member of the Stratham Memorial School Board I will continue to oppose plans that unreasonably impact the learning environment for our students and makes our teachers jobs harder. Our educators, parents, and the public communicated to us, and the current SMS Board members, that it was not in the best interest of students OR educators to reduce one-on-one time with students and reduce in-class time for teachers by increasing student-to-teacher ratios and the board and FAC had already ensured that, through weeks of analysis and input, the 2.7% operating budget carefully balanced the needs of Stratham taxpayers with the needs of our students.

Voting to further reduce the budget in minutes with zero additional analysis, against the advice of the FAC charged with analyzing the budget, and with information from the SAU 16 Superintendent that "further reductions would result in programming, teacher instruction or staff reductions" is not offering the support our teachers deserve or setting our students up for success.

Data sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Data

SMS Board / FAC Meeting 1-15-25 Draft Minutes