We have been proud to serve on the Amherst School District Ways & Means (W&M) Committee this year, and we hope you find our fact-based analyses useful as you weigh your votes on articles that may well shape the future of Amherst.  

We have certainly looked more thoroughly at the means given to the Amherst School District by voters and the ways in which those means have been used to advance the education of our children. We have also compared the spending patterns and educational outcomes of our K-8 system with those of peer and aspirational communities (as defined by the SAU administration). However, we do not believe for a moment that we have ventured beyond the bounds of our W&M charter, nor have we ventured into the territory of the school boards and administration. 

      What we have done is to conduct and share several in-depth analyses, all located on the ASD W&M webpage on the SAU39 website: 

1. A compilation and comparison of annual budgets and spending patterns of ASD and our peer communities using templates prescribed by the NH Department of Education. 

2. A multi-year assessment of the educational value of an ASD K-8 education – an eight-page Executive Summaryand a more detailed main report. 

3. An analysis of the proposed ASD operating budget and proposed AEA and ASSA collective bargaining agreements along with their future cost implications in an Executive Summary and main report entitled, “Why Amherst School District Costs Are So High and What to Do About Them.”

4. A Cost Comparison of Hollis-Brookline (SAU41) and Amherst-Mont Vernon (SAU39) and the proposed SAU39 administrative budget (Brick School) based on multi-year spending patterns.

5. An analysis of the proposed new elementary school. 

      We have also created a Tax Estimator that residents can use to see the five-year impact that FY24 town and school warrant articles may have on their property taxes.

We hope you continue to support this level of analysis, transparency, and public discourse into the ways your tax dollars are used to pursue the educational outcomes we all want for our students. 

Respectfully submitted, 

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Dwayne Purvis, Chair

Jeff Candito, Vice Chair

Greg Fritz, Secretary

Mike Akillian