The hike exceeds the tax index set by the state for our district, and while the claim from the meeting from Board and Admin alike was that the budget will come down to the index, don't be surprised if they use exemptions to get around a voter referendum, particularly given some of the uncertainties.
Brad wrote, "It was further stated that the Admin's intent is to tax at the Index level because they are looking ahead at the next 3-5 years (when some serious expenditures are going to hit)."
Echoed from the E-T article, " Rishcoff and Lesky recommended the board tax to the index regardless of the district's spending level. Their goal is to build up a surplus that can be used to cushion future budgets that may expand due to a new school opening in 2009 and increased debt service."
Brad Moulton posted detailed notes (read them here) from the meeting including Tom Maher's points that bear repeating:
- we are not reducing spending, but simply decreasing the proposed increase.
- Salaries and Benefits are budgeted to increase 3.3% and 5.2% respectively, the overall budget shows an increase of 7.1% in spending.
- The biggest increase in next year's budget is debt service for the new MS.
Worse yet, there is no intention or desire to go below that figure, they are trying to raise taxes as much as they can without a referendum because they know they put themselves against the wall by going all out in spending with the new MS. Now we begin to pay the piper.
It may be too late, but now is as good a time as any to throw out the prior year budget and go step by step to figure out what really needs to be spent and what doesn't. Start from scratch - don't add on to what we were already spending - that approach only perpetuates waste and inefficiency.
6 comments:
Here we go again. There was a school board election and nothing has changed. Victor Lesky and the rest of his cabal have decided to continue the rape of the taxpayers of the Nazareth Area School District and if you think this is the only tax hike you will get this year think again. Our elected representatives, who are suppose to work for us, not vis versa, are going to tax us until we are bled dry. They are betting on the fact that when they start to talk about eliminating programs that all will hush up and go away. Well, let me recommed a start. Since physical education no longer seems to be a requirement I would recommend we remove the phys. ed teachers and eliminate all sports. I realize that will raise some hackles but so be it. Despite the fact that they are government schools, their primary obligation is to "educate" our children not train them to be the worker bees.
I don't want to start anything here, but eliminating sports would be detrimental. Research shows that extra curr. activity including sports does increase test scores and keeps kids out of trouble. It is especially valuable (and research supports this) with regards to girls.
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I believe every kid who is physically capable of participating in sports, no matter their sex, should do daily. At the tender age of 63 I play golf, I swim, and I have reinstituted my running regime doing 3.5 miles every other day. I hope to work that up to 5 days a week and then expand the mileage. I also agree that it does indeed
contribute to better grades, I was a teacher for 32 years, coached and knew it helped all kids. But sports today are not the sports of yesterday. I played and continue to play for fun not a scholarship. If parents want their kids to play sports in order to get into college then I say set up community teams, farm clubs if you will, and pay to have your kids play. I put this out there in the first place because this is where the board will go first along with things like art and music in order to quiet the critics and to pit neighbor against neighbor. I've seen it before and we will see it again. So lets tell the Lesky gang to eliminate this non-profitable endeavor, eliminate all tied to the sports, and stick with the primary goal of educating our children, God knows they need that since they all can't become professional athletes.
Chris,
Very well put and completely on the mark.
But we need to look deeper inside at where our tax dollars are being spent and if it is being done so wisely.
In the past, there have been threads on this site regarding various and sundry areas where dollars are wasted.
First is above all is the new school and all the bells and whistles that will go with it. Meanwhile, there is a potential that we will outgrow the size of the high school.
We got a new all weather turf field because "everyone else has one". Did we NEED it? Not really, but we are now stuck with it.
We got a brand new transportation building. Did we need one? Probably not, but we now have it.
In the middle, our children are forced to participate in "activities" that require supplies, but have nothing to do with edulation, but have a cost associated with them.
These are just a couple of examples, and I am sure there are many more.
There appears to be no accountability from the school board, and I'm not sure how we can turn that around.
The NASD understands how this works and they manage the political side of the tax hike.
Go high, force tough decisions, provoke a special interest response (usually several), approve everything in the name of the people.
It is repeated year in and year out.
At the same time, no one looks at the existing waste. I'll bet the new costs for the MS exceed projections.
This is a huge problem given the debt we've taken on (we haven't even paid off the current MS and we're building a new one).
The compounding problem is the more you pay, the more you expect and the reality is we will be asking for more and being able to provide less.
The stockpiling notion of raising now because it is going to get worse ought to have people up in arms, but I think the reality is they've seen this before and know the outcome, taxes will go up despite complaints so why bother.
Prolonged frustration unfortunately breeds apathy.
Anonymous
I will suggest a place to start.All the electives that exist in the curriculum, you can probably cut a bunch if we go back to the stuff we should really be teaching in the education process. Mom and dad can teach sex.ed. Class sizes can be increased despite what the so called experts tell us. When I first started to teach in 1967 it was not all that unusual to have 30-35 students in a class. But then we also had a thing called discipline and we did not main stream something that is not working all that well.
I would also like to see the classification list of the exceptions. It use to be that Honor Students in some districts were classified and thus would allow the districts to skirt the legal tax increase level.
Get rid of all day kindergarten in fact get rid of kindergarten all together.
Let's stop running school buses that are only half full and let's put the bus contract out on bid every three years.
Let's stop building regal buildings and the practice of having to pay Philadelphia Union Wages in Nazareth.
Let's see some competition in the engineering firms instead of everyboy using Du'Huy.
Let's hire real negotiators for the next contract or offer the teachers a medical savings plan that would allow them to pick their own health insurance. After all they are college grads and should be able to that. Get rid of the sports and all the other extras. You want your kid to play piano, hire a teacher like parents use to do. Want sports so your kid can earn a scholarship, do it at the community level. Raise the money to build the pool or the field or the court. Build it and they will come. We can no longer afford all the goodies and really don't need them
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