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WSESD Independent Budget Review Commitee – Putney representative needed

The Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) is looking for a Putney resident who will serve on an Independent Budget Review Committee (IBRC). This is the second year of the Independent Budget Review process, where a representative from each town in the district (Putney, Dummerson, Brattleboro & Guilford) follows along in the budget process and submits a report to help local residents vote on the budget in the Spring.

You can find the official WSESD budget timeline here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K9MChWLdfIuMjd0qXvKwhghy_TmlV11B/view

It is a bit hard to follow… but the IBRC meets according to the WSESD budget timeline.

· Members attend (or try to attend as much as possible) the finance committee meetings which are usually an hour long: 2 in November, 4 in December and 4 in January. So 10-12 hours of being there when the budget gets put together.
· In late January, the IBRC meets to initially determine the format and content of a public report and split up tasks for creating the report. This is approximately 3-4 hours.
· During the first two weeks of February, the IBRC creates a report to explain the budget and answer questions gathered from the public. This totals about 7-9 hours of writing/reviewing content.

In summary (total commitment between November 2022-February 2023):
· 10-12 hours in budget meetings
· 3-4 hours in IBRC meetings
· 7-9 hours of writing/reviewing content

It is CRITICALLY important that Putney be represented on the IBRC, in large part so that Putney voters have someone to turn to who with confidence to ask “what does the WSESD budget mean for us?”

An entreaty from an IBRC member from another town: “It is important there is someone from Putney who understands the budget and how it effects PCS.”

If you are interested, you can contact Ruby McAdoo, rubymcadoo@gmail.com and she connect you to someone in the WSESD — or speak to Kristina Naylor (Dummerston) or Maggie Foley (Guilford), who are the only folks committed to the IBRC at the moment (Brattleboro is looking for someone to serve as well).