Fall Mountain budget and raises both pass

By BILL CHAISSON
[email protected]
LANGDON — In yesterday’s Eagle Times we reported that Charlestown residents had voted down the Fall Mountain Regional School District budget and a three-schedule of raises for food-service workers at the schools, Articles 1 and 2 on the school warrant. Charlestown was, however, the lone dissenter in the cooperative district; Alstead, Acworth, Langdon, and Walpole all voted in favor of the articles. The school budget passed by 1,102 to 840 and the raises were approved 1,194 to 793.

Furthermore, Charlestown was alone in rejecting Article 7, which asked permission to put $500,000 in capital reserve funds for each of the member towns in the school district. These funds are to come from the year-end general fund balance. They will be help by the trustee of trust funds in the respective towns and will only be spent with the consent of the voters. This article passed 1,217 to 701.

All of the above makes sense in the light of the results for Article 8, which requested $150,000 for a study to assess the “feasibility and suitability” of a single district leaving the cooperative district. While this passed by a healthy margin in Charlestown, it was voted down by even larger margins in the other four districts with a final tally of 748 to 1,195.

Charlestown included a very similar article on their town warrant, which passed. Consequently, Charlestown taxpayers will foot the bill for the study rather than taxpayers in the member towns of Fall Mountain Regional School District (SAU 60).