Francestown choices
Francestown recently voted to run its own school district. Our new district will soon own a school building and be responsible for its upkeep. Buildings and repairs are often paid for with bonds, spreading the cost over the years the improvements will last. Francestown voters should know their representative, Mary Murphy, cosponsored a bill that would have sharply limited that option.
HB 1427, the so-called SHIELD Act, would have barred towns, counties and school districts from issuing bonds except for declared emergencies, a few other narrow cases, or by a town meeting vote with unrealistic voter turnout targets. Concord, not Deering or Francestown, would set the rules for when our towns could issue bonds. So much for local control.
The bill gets government finance exactly backwards. A school roof or a bridge lasts 30 years or more. Bonds spread that cost across the people who use it, the same reason families take out mortgages instead of saving for decades to buy a house. In most cases, towns could fix a school only after it failed. That isn’t thrift. It is deferred maintenance written into law, and taxpayers would pay more for it later.
Rep. Murphy didn’t just vote for this. She put her name on it. The House committee rejected it 13–5. The full House, under Republican leadership, buried it 234–112.
Mary Murphy emphatically reminds voters that she is an influential member of the Ways and Means Committee and that her loss would be to the detriment of the state. But what if you don’t agree with her ways and her means?
Fortunately, we can vote for independent candidate Tim Coffin, who spent his career in municipal finance and understands these basics and the complexities behind them. Consider Tim Coffin, State Rep. Hillsborough District 27.