When did we vote to approve $243,660.00 to build a Field & Rec House at WHS ?

Where did this money come from ?

When do they start construction of the track and field without voter approval ?

Why stop now.....we built a road, hired an asst. GBS principal, hiring an additional asst. superintendant, created a new tradition by manipulating our youth in a bogus vote, unlimited spending in a default budget, laptops, planting the seed to IB curriculum, open with two classes-continuing to pay tuition to Salem - all without voter approval or permission...

Really - why stop now....you are on a roll...

Ghost -

I do believe people care but their only recourse is on election day.

We have voted out most guilty elected volunteers (some chose not the run again because they knew) and failed many warrants including a school budget since 2008.

The above hasn't seemed to stop them spending and ignoring the voters - even with a default budget...yet they blame the economy for their election failures.

When did this happen?  I have not seen anything in the news.  Will look around the school and town websites.  $243K seems really cheap for a fieldhouse and a track & field.  Usually the new ‘turf’ fields with a track run just above a $1 million (North Reading being the most recent I could find).  I do think WHS needs a track & field and some stands for the football field, but it does need to be done the right way.

As for the cable wire item, that does not bother me.  Just like anything news, some ‘bugs’ will have to worked out of WHS.  OK to pay for it now to get it fixed; but, make sure if it was a construction error, the town goes back to the builder to get the money.

Tom:

They probably hid it in the budget under some line item such as start up costs, FF & E as you stated, maybe they built in on each line item additional percentiles knowing that they would not need it and padded the budget.

I am sure there are and were so many line items, that they could put in each line item a few percentiles to get this type of extra money. Who questioned it? Obviously no one. Yet they forgot to put in the road..my God, they probably were so concerned about padding the budget that is why they forgot all about the access road. Makes sense to me.

When you are doing things that may be somewhat sneaky,it comes back to bite you one way or the other. The way I see it with these boards, they should have to have an outside agency or auditor come in and explain every line item and prove why they put those monies in there, the reasoning, why at the percentile and so forth prior to any approval by anyone. Then you know there have been true checks and balances. The way it seems to me is they just have money flowing from all areas and no one knows where it came from...but they do! What a joke...really.. No one is really watching the money, anyone can make fuzzy math work if they wanted too... but not if there was an auditor involved. All line items should be questioned and questioned until they cannot stand it. That is how it is done in the business world. Now aren't they running a business too with our money? Where were the checks and balances and not from those on the team so to speak...

The field house is being paid for from the construction loan.  It has always been part of the construction package and has been discussed, in public, on numerous occasions with Glen Davis over the course of the project.  Each school board has postponed doing the work until the end of the project for budgetary reasons.  Tom knows better than to make the accusations he has made.