In this letter sent yesterday, the Mayor asked the BOE and the Superintendent to go back to the drawing boards.
"I must respectfully request that the Board recognize the economic climate our taxpayers face and work toward reducing the proposed increase by further examining each budget component and element..."
Bravo.
I think she has spoken for every reasonable taxpayer.
22 comments:
That’s a very good comeback by the Mayor. Let’s hope she has a back-up plan ready for when the Board of Education and PTO inevitably demagogue the issue and attack her for being “anti-child” or something ridiculous like that. I also hope she’s anticipated the inevitability of the inept Town Council completely rolling over on this one. She better have a back-up plan ready when that happens too…
Let’s predict what “big cuts” the BoE will make to their “bare-bones budget” in order to teach taxpayers and the Mayor a lesson:
1. School sports (a.k.a. “pay to play”).
2. Magnet school tuition (a.k.a. “school choice”).
3. Nothing else (they won’t be able to find any other “waste” in their enormous $55.5 million budget).
You heard it here first!
I give a big gold star to Pat but let's play this out.
Just as the last person wrote, the BOE will write back to her saying that they can't find any reductions so she'll make a big cut.
Art Cummings will be all over her and cry out for the Town to dig deeper. And that means cuts in personnel. Oh no, can't cut any administration at the school.
The Editor of the Spectrum will write about poor little Johnny who can't read.
By the time the budget gets into the Council's hands, they'll be so scared of the voters they'll put back most of what the Mayor took out. And the BoF will put back the rest. Michel Gutman is doing a great job but look at who else is on his Board. Frank Wargo? Shelly Pruss? A retired teacher? Can you see any of them supporting Michel?
Then the budget will be defeated again and again.
Wake up everyone. Listen to Mr. Jankowski.
...and this is why I like working for her
"... By the time the budget gets into the Council's hands, they'll be so scared of the voters they'll put back most of what the Mayor took out. And the BoF will put back the rest..."
Neither the Town Council nor the BoF are afraid of "the voters", although they should be. They're completely intimidated by the same 100 or so PTO activists who regularly show up at budget hearings. These 100 activists pretty much dictate town education spending through their feeble proxies on the Town Council and BoF. Unfortunately, neither the Town Council nor the BoF understand that most working folks (taxpayers) don't have the time to attend those meetings, that's why we have a representative form of government and elect them to represent us!
"...Michel Gutman is doing a great job but look at who else is on his Board. Frank Wargo? Shelly Pruss? A retired teacher? Can you see any of them supporting Michel?..."
Unless you were referring to Larry Tripp as the "retired teacher", you forgot to mention the spineless BoF Republicans in your list. Bob Sherry rarely takes a stand on anything that could be considered the least bit "controversial", he just goes with the flow and hopes nobody notices. Mr. Tripp is little more than a jolly stooge of the teachers' union. Are these really the most qualified Republicans in town to serve on the BoF? Is it any wonder the town finances are such a mess?
The Superintendent and BoE should hang their heads in shame for trying to place the blame on the Mayor as they have in the past-by refusing to do what they are elected for and trim their own budget! The Superintendent gets a salary much larger than the Mayor (with yearly raises too!) and should be held accountable. Not the Mayor. She and Ray Jankowski go line by line over the Town's budget and remove many necessary items to keep the budget inline...in fact she still is cutting and it hasn't come before the Clown Council yet.But the BoE spent mere hours going over a budget of 55 million and then pass the buck and blame to the Mayor. BRAVA MAYOR-refuse to do their job. Now I can only hope they take the responsibility seriously, and trim out unnecessary spending to get their budget to the 2.3% like the Town, and 2.3% of 55 million is a lot more than 2.3% of 29 million let us not forget. But (sigh) I believe this statement is correct "Let’s predict what “big cuts” the BoE will make to their “bare-bones budget” in order to teach taxpayers and the Mayor a lesson:
1. School sports (a.k.a. “pay to play”).
2. Magnet school tuition (a.k.a. “school choice”).
3. Nothing else (they won’t be able to find any other “waste” in their enormous $55.5 million budget).
You heard it here first!"
Unfortunately.
"Clown Council"... Very clever!
Now we have Bob Grumbelsjerker on the Clown Council and Paddyfote padding her budget!
Here's a prediction on how the Board of Finance will vote on the school budget this year:
All 3 Dems will support the original $59.1 million Board of Education Budget, there's no question about that. On the Republican side, Gutman will oppose it. That leaves the decision up to one of the two RINOs on the board, Sherry or Tripp. Both of these tax & spend liberals are fully capable of siding with the Democrats on any spending or budgetary issue. Even though I doubt Sherry would go against the mayor on this one, he'll play the fence and vote with Gutman if he knows Tripp will vote with the Dems.
There you have it folks; the decision is all up to Tripp this year. Does anyone venture a guess on how a retired teacher will vote on the school budget?
Bob Sherry vote with Tripp thats a laugh! Have you ever been to a bof meeting? Tripp had been siding with that loser George McL before he thankfully left the bof. I wish people who write here had some knowledge of what happens at meetings and did not just write out of anger and ingnorance.
I think that's the point. If Tripp doesn't vote to restore the budget, then Sherry will. They won't vote together.
This unprecedented move indicates that the Mayor is scared to present her own budget to the public. I suspect it must be a bit higher than past years, and she's afraid. We'll soon find out.
"This unprecedented move indicates that the Mayor is scared to present her own budget to the public. I suspect it must be a bit higher than past years, and she's afraid. We'll soon find out."
HUH????
they won't vote together....
Where do you get your information from? You need to get your facts straight. Posting anything just to
be negative is something a mindless idiot can do.
No, mindless idiots find liberal Republicans to fill all elected positions and then wonder why they vote as liberal Republicans.
Well said brutus, but I think the real mindless idiots vote for liberal Democrats as well as liberal Republicans and then wonder why these representatives are incapable of any independent thought or show an ounce of leadership that requires bucking the shameful status quo system that continues to fail us after millions and millions more have been spent. How many times does this have to happen before these mindless fools see a pattern developing.
Two million dollar surpluses, adding six figure salaries, hiring more staff as enrollment is in decline, duplicate functions, duplicate equipment.......... shameful and disgusting.
I have heard it said before but it bears repeating. "We need another social worker for the school system because most of the BOE members and militant PTO members are all on drugs!"
Unfortunately, there’s only Democrats or liberal Republicans to vote for around here. Can anyone tell the difference between them? At least liberal-talking Democrats are more trustworthy than conservative-talking Republicans who vote like liberal Democrats. That gives the Democrats the edge as far as I’m concerned.
I agree that when the Dems are in power I expect them to have their fingers deep in my wallet. Anyone who votes Democratic and doesn't expect higher taxes either doesn't have a job or is just plain idiotic (both likely scenarios).
What pisses voters like me off immensely is when Republicans stick their dirty paws deeper into my wallet after they're elected. This is because, unlike the Democrats, Republicans tend to pass themselves off as smaller government, lower tax candidates when they're running for election/reelection.
When both parties are raising taxes and/or spending money like drunken sailors (no offense intended to our fine members of the U.S. Navy), then the Republicans are worse because they're the bigger liars.
This is why the Republicans are in BIG trouble now with their former "base", and won't recover by Election Day 2008.
Sounds like Black Knight could use some drugs...
Is that a proposition or an observation? Are you a BOE member, a PTO militant or one of the dealers?
Care to offer any meaningful dialog or just hurl insinuations?
Maybe hurling is just your thing.
If any of the liberals, be they Democrat or Republican, on the BOE ever had a independent thought it long ago died of loneliness.
It does seem strange that some of the electorate seems surprised. When the PTO interviewed the candidates all of the liberals said that we need more teachers and we need to pay them more, we need more administrators and we need to pay them more. This was said even though some of them admitted that they had no idea how many teachers we employee or how many administrators we employee and in spite of declining enrollment that I’m sure they had no idea of.
Maybe you should lay off of the drugs yourself. I hear we have plenty of social workers at the school.
I think Black Knight already has all the drugs he/she needs. Maybe 28 days is what is needed.
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