To the editor:

Portsmouth School Committee Chair Emily Copeland and I agree that a number of the school projects paid for by the recent bond were needed and are valuable. The issue is that the school bond is very different from what the School Department sold to the public!

The bond financials presented by the School Department had $528K of state reimbursement coming to Portsmouth in 2025. During the recent budget process that money was not in the budget. I investigated and found this was one of a number of significant changes that had been made to the bond after it was approved by the voters. The financial impact of those changes to the taxpayer is about $2 million!

Taxpayers who paid for both the bond council (RIHEBC) and the financial advisor (PFM) to help the School Department determine that bond, have a right to be upset when, a year or two later, it is discovered the bond the voters had agreed to was substantially altered and is much more expensive. Furthermore, those changes were made without any public disclosure and do not seem to be justified by market conditions.

My point is the voters who approved the bond were repeatedly presented with a very precise and professionally calculated set of financial bond data by the School Department. The voters liked what they saw. As a result, the bond referendum passed. However, without being notified of any changes, the residents now find the bond they are paying for is a substantially different financial instrument and it is $2 million more expensive.

I do not understand why Ms. Copeland is upset with my use of the word “deceived” because this situation is the dictionary definition of being “deceived.” As an elected official representing the voters, why is she defending this deception and attacking the resident who discovered it? Instead she should investigate how this could have happened, determine whether the changes were justified, and then take steps to prevent such an egregious lack of transparency from occurring again!

Tom Grieb

110 Thayer Drive

Portsmouth