via One Franklin
We have officially registered a ballot question committee called "One Franklin 2023" aka One Franklin. (Ruthann O'Sullivan, Chair and Ken Ojukwu, Treasurer) We are piggy-backing off of the efforts originally started in 2019 after many of you saw over 100 Franklin teachers standing with pink slips on Route 140.
When the federal covid relief money was given to Franklin, our public schools were given a temporary band aid. This federal money plus the chaos ensued by managing covid, stalled the progress of that original committee.
However, that federal relief money is gone and this is why once again our schools are back facing a "fiscal cliff". With the original committee's blessing, we have reignited the efforts to solve this problem. More importantly, One Franklin is for ALL of our community! We do not want the health of our public schools to come at the expense of other departments. We have amazing services in town, they are all stretched thin, and we need to band together as a community.
To summarize:
The One Franklin committee is a group of engaged citizens who are working with elected leaders to pass a tax override in Franklin.
The community's engagement is the absolute most important factor. We have a ton of ways to be involved regardless of your bandwidth. We also don't expect folks who have not been closely watching the history of Franklin's budget process to know immediately that this override is necessary. One of the initiatives of One Franklin is to educate the community as to why we support an override.
Please join our efforts! The email to be involved is OneFranklinVolunteers@gmail.com
We also have a Facebook page, but often cross post on this Support for Franklin Public Schools page as well.
Citizen's engagement motivated our Town Council to reconvene the Joint Budget Subcommittee, which meets Aug 2. Please attend and recruit as many in the community as possible to learn what's happening and engage.
We thought it would be helpful to summarize our expectations of how this process will unfold.
Since our school budget is at such a critical tipping point, by default it will be a significant portion of what will be the amount asked for on the override ballot question. The School Committee, and specifically the members from School Committee's Finance Subcommittee as well as the members of School Committee on Joint Budget Subcommittee will work with school administration to put together line items which they will then bring forward as a request for an override.
Those line items seem to be what folks in this thread refer to as a "proposal". These School Committee members and our school administrators are the best people to draft this request.
One Franklin is committed to remaining engaged, motivating and supporting those efforts to get this done.
From there, One Franklin will engage, motivate and support the other non-school departments to submit their needs so that our joint budget subcommittee and TC can discuss/debate in open meetings.
The Town Council will ultimately vote on a number they believe the community will support.
Once that number is specified and outlined so that citizens know precisely where money will be allocated, the town attorney will draft the ballot question.
One Franklin will have many many open meetings and resources available above and beyond what you get to hear during Town Council, School Committee, and Finance Committee meetings. We have over 200 active volunteers and the list is growing. So whether you just want to dip your toe in the water, or host an educational event, we want you!
Franklin values our town services, let's work together to make sure they're not just efficient, they're excellent!
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| General Update from the One Franklin group |
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