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Must Have All Facts

Six years ago, Clinton taxpayers passed a referendum by 40 votes to build a new Morgan School. With the new schools comes all the purported advantages of new technology, better layout, less maintenance, and energy efficiency, etc. The downside, of course, is that we are saddled with significant debt for 20 years. However, in many of the letters advocating the passing of the school budget, the impact of the debt is omitted.

Several of these talk about “operating budgets.” These do not include debt service (or capital spending). Others compare cost per student to neighboring towns. These also do not include debt service. This is equivalent to buying a new home and not including the monthly mortgage payments in your budget. This amount is significant, and is increasing. It comprises more than $3 million in the 2018-’19 education budget.

Taxpayers must have all facts before voting, and leaving out debt service in year-to-year spending comparisons, or in comparisons to other towns, is simply misleading.

Len Fried

Clinton