WRITE IN These Candidates for
Cooperative School Budget Advisory Committee

Hi everyone, My name is Tzuo, and you can drop all phonetically incongruent letters - Zo as in Alonzo works perfectly fine.

My wife works at Exeter General Hospital and we moved here when our only daughter was 6 months old. Post PhD from UPenn in 2015, I was an Economics professor at Boston College for 8 years. Nowadays, I am experiencing first hand the challenges of building a small business.

Seeing that no one is running for the SAU16 Budget Advisory Committee, I figured I'd volunteer as a write-in candidate. I am a proud independent, formally, and even more in spirit. I like to think about the impact of policy independent of ideology, and I change my mind often depending on facts and my life experiences.

The Budget Advisory Committee is purely advisory and has no decision-making capabilities. It provides review and oversight services to taxpayers in general and in particular to the Budget Committee, who composes a budget for the Board to act upon after voter approval. While lacking "teeth", I think the role is an important one.

The nature of local governance is such that asking good (and sometimes difficult) questions can be uncomfortable if one is also tasked with making impactful decisions that affect neighbors and friends. Being new here, I know very few people and have very little knowledge about historical developments. I literally don't know which questions have been asked by whom before. I also know very little about how things work and I'll just have to question everything, within reason, and without agenda.

More broadly, I happen to think that public education is a very, very, very good thing, and that we, as a nation, are severely underinvested. This doesn't mean that I think the answer is "more spending" on everything education-related. I want more results for as few dollars as possible. The best way to spend more on education is to question how and why we are spending every penny. Ruthless financial prudence inspires public confidence in, and approval of, higher levels of spending to obtain better educational outcomes for all.

So that's what I promise to do - ask questions. You know where I stand on public education and what I think my main job is on the committee. Thank you!!!

Bob Moore has been a resident in East Kingston for 26 years and previously owned Exeter Music. He taught science in the public schools for 24 years and environmental science at the NH Technical College in Stratham. He currently volunteers in social justice groups and on the East Kingston waste and recycling committee. He is a lifelong musician. He looks forward to bringing his background in teaching, and his pragmatic approach and consensus building style to work with the SAU 16 Budget Advisory Committee. 

Jackie Benson is committed to assuring that every student in the SAU 16 cooperative schools has an environment to enable them to thrive. She has two children in the SAU 16 schools and a spouse who is a teacher. She will work on the SAU 16 Budget Advisory Committee to help the SAU 16 schools provide the excellence we expect from our teachers and staff, and a responsible budget which supports that excellence. She lives in Kensington and owns a small writing and publishing business.