Downshifting

by: Dean Barker

Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 05:51:01 AM EDT

(So sad, and yet so predictable - promoted by William Tucker)

The second biggest false conceit that came from Bill O'Brien's GOP supermajority in Concord (the first was their laser-like focus on jobs) is that there would be no budget downshifting.

It would be funny if it weren't so tragic:

Sixty troubled students now under state supervision will soon have their cases closed and become the responsibility of the city.
For the past three months, the Manchester School District and Police Department have been scrambling to come up with a plan to keep these students out of the juvenile criminal justice system.

Why is this happening?

changes in state law and state budget cuts have reduced the scope of the CHINS (Children In Need of Services) program to care for only the most severe cases. The chronically truant, the runaways and other less severe cases are no longer funded under the program.

Back in July, our justice system was clear on the consequences of Bill O'Brien's work:

He said it's likely there will be cases that would have been brought before the court that will find services available in communities, but others will not move forward and those children will continue to be truant or commit crimes.

At the time I wrote: some will get the help they need locally instead of through CHINS - to be paid for by your increased property tax bill. Others will fill our jails, expensively. Still others will go missing and unreported.

I failed to add: every minute a school community is spending their finite resources dealing with O'Brien's downshifting is a minute not spent delivering education to the rest of the student body.

(find me > 140 on birch paper; on Twitter < 140)

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