SDGANH Presentation

I had the opportunity to present a seminar on School Budgeting to the School District Governance Association of NH (sdganh.org) on Sept 19, 2020. This was primarily intended as a broad-scope primer appropriate for new members of a School Board or Budget Committee, or taxpayers. It also included more advanced topics and techniques for gaining better perspectives into the school budget. The slides from my presentation can be found here.

I’ll be presenting a streamlined version of this presentation in early October, 2021.

Cub Scouts Presentation

In December, 2020, I enjoyed an opportunity to present to some Cub Scouts from Hooksett Pack 292 about civics. I shared a little about my roles in Hooksett town government, tied that into Scouting traits that are useful in public service, and had a fun exercise with a hypothetical small town budget. The Scouts were great!

Testimony to the NH House and Senate

In early 2021, I testified in support of three House Bills to improve town and school budget transparency. These bills were consolidated to House Bill (HB) 243. The bills faced some disturbing opposition by two taxpayer-funded entities, the New Hampshire Municipal Association (NHMA) and New Hampshire School Board Association (NHSBA). Can you believe it? Taxpayer funds sponsored lobbying against bills to provide budget transparency to taxpayers.

Inspiring Online Budget Transparency

I was impressed by this uncommonly good example of school budget transparency: the Merrimack Valley School District (SAU #46) embeds their school budget spreadsheet directly into its website! If you don’t have an electronic copy of a large budget, for use in a tool like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, you really can’t analyze it in a meaningful way.

https://www.mvsdpride.org/school-board/2020-mvsd-proposed-budget