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Mr. Corrente,

I lied? The please explain what you mean when you said (in multiple posts): "Reverse the legislation that makes you totally unaccountable to anyone from the moment you receive your annual budget."

What specific legislation are you referring to? Per our Charter, the SC is accountable to the voters. The only way you'd make them accountable to the Council (which is what you defacto advocate when you say there's no Fire Committee or Police Committee) is if you move to an appointed SC. Is that what you're advocating? If so, I'd remind you that the Sewer Board is an appointed body and you can look at its history of fiscal prowess and, at times, Council meddling, to gauge the effectivenss of an appointed body. Again, the SC is accountable to taxpayers - that would be the voters. They are accountable - their budget is audited every year. What you're advocating for is control and political control of a nonpartisan SC is a recipe for disaster. The vast majority of school governance is not designed that way and for good reason. If voters don't like the job that their councilperson or SC member is doing, they have a simple remedy - it's called an election. Fnally, I have to repeat that the Council has essentially level funded schools for the past 9-9 years while at the same time, that same Council has presided over a 50+% increase of the City side of the ledger. Where's your equivalent outrage? We're very close to a 50/50 split in local tax allocations between the city and schools. I'd invite you to do some research on how many other cities/towns are at that level. You won't find very many.

David Testa