Amherst's Community Choices: Let Your Voice Be Heard!

The Facilitation of Community Choices Committee was appointed by the Amherst Select Board last May with the task of reviewing the components of Amherst's budget, formulating alternative scenarios for the next 5 years, and presenting their results to us, the citizens of Amherst. In turn we are being asked to study and debate their findings, and to provide our own feedback. The Committee with then use these results to make recommendations to the Finance Committee and Town Meeting. At last night's Parent Council meeting, Fort River parent and committee member, Alison Donta, gave an informative presentation about the outlook for our Town's budget for the next 5 years (hint: it's not pretty!). It is important that we, as parents of children in the public schools, be aware of the budget outlook, not only for the town as a whole, but also of the schools, which make up a large portion of the town's overall budget. If you weren't able to attend last night's meeting, you can view a lot of information about the budget and the various funding scenarios on the committee's website: www.amherstchoices.org. Please take some time to look at their site and to give feedback on their online questionnaire. You can also download paper copies of the questionnaire from the website. The deadline for submitting feedback is November 4th. Please encourage your friends and neighbors to do the same! There are also several more upcoming budget presentations by the committee that are open to the public: Monday October 20, Bangs Center Room 101, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. Tuesday October 21, ACTV Studio with the TMCC, 7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Tuesday October 28, Amherst Club, 12:30 p.m.