Response to Letter in Athol Daily News from Orange Taxpayers Association

I received an E mail from an Orange Elementary Teacher who copied and pasted a letter that appeared in the Athol Daily News from Orange Taxpayers Association (OTA) Member, Brian M. Haskins. I never actually saw the letter in the paper, for if I had this response would have been drafted much sooner. In his letter, Mr. Haskins indicated that the OTA could not support regionalization at this time.

The first part of my response is simply a series of questions. The first being, what is the Orange Taxpayers Association? From what I have seen at public meetings it is a group of about a dozen or so people who are active participants in school committee meetings, finance committee meetings, and meetings of the Board of Selectmen. I have never asked them what it is that they stand for, what their mission statement is and/or if they have a vision statement. I could not find a website with their name on it, as I was curious as to what were their core values. I did surmise that they have something to do with trying to keep taxes low for citizens, but after reading Mr. Haskins letter I figured I must be wrong.

You see, I did some math today. It is a hard FACT that if the Orange Elementary Schools had regionalized with the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District in 2006, over the last five years $1,374,063.00 would have been available for the Orange Elementary Schools as a source of revenue. This would have come to the schools with no strings attached! With this much more to work with, I can say with great certainty that the roof at Dexter Park would not be in the poor condition that it is in. The $100,000.00 repair would have been covered and left $1,274,063.00 to spare.

The remaining $1.2 MILLION DOLLARS could very well have been used for art, music, physical education, books, computers, professional development, curricular materials, and/or other building repairs. In an Orange Elementary School District that is not regionalized these bills will have to be picked up by the taxpayers. So, I have to ask…Mr. Haskins:

Does the OTA stand for raising taxes or reducing them????

If you say reducing them, why would you reject the hundreds of thousands of dollars in state aid that will come to Orange via Massachusetts Regional Transportation Reimbursement each and every year????

Perhaps you know of some other way to return teachers to classrooms, repair buildings, and bring up to date technology to our schools???