Link to Proposed School Budget
A reader wrote in and stated they had missed the Budget Introduction last night and wanted to know "what happened and what should we be ready for?" and someone wrote in a response. In all fairness, the response deserves its own post, so here is what the person wrote in verbatim:
An answer to both questions would be "yes". It should be in the paper soon.
It looks like alot of hard decisions were made by the board to cut the staff,programs and improvements but there is still a .0305 cent increase proposed.
On a home assessed at $150,000 this would only be about $3.83 more a month.
Four certified staff members and 2.5 Aides would be leaving and the only thing left to cut would be more teachers which would result in even larger class sizes.
It's a sad situation for everybody with the economy the way it is. .
Thank you to the reader who responded and hopefully others who were in attendance will have other insights about the meeting.
3 comments:
Two comments left on earlier post:
Comment 1) Administration could be consolidated to save money too. It doesn't seem as though that is being proposed.
Comment 2)$3.83 per month might sound like only a little amount of money but when you consider that our property taxes probably will go up by 15 cents this year (local school, high school, township and county property taxes), that's about $230 more a year on top of what what one is currently paying on a $150,000 house. If you house is valued at $250,000, that's a $383 tax increase. Plus, if you have $150,000 in income, you can't deduct it from your State income tax so you're paying taxes on your taxes to boot! Something has to change soon or we'll all be forced to move elsewhere. Even the public employees will have to commute from out of state.
Re:3:25 pm
You said
"something's got to change soon"
I'm starting to wonder if it's too late already.
When Unions first formed they were a good thing. They stopped unfair labor practices and gave a fair wage.
We all saw our manufacturing jobs leave this country because they couldn't survive the Union's demands.
The service companies we have left are hiring part timers so they don't have to give the benefits.
The teacher's union and the police union are doing the same thing to themselves. By demanding more increases and more and more benefits they are pricing themselves out of jobs.
There's going to come a time when only part time teachers and police will work at an hourly rate with no benefits like the majority of Americans.
It made me very sad to look at the linked budget. It appears that almost all the children's services have been cut while the employees salaries and benefits have grown.
I know that the board is under contract to give these increases now but I hope they can make some major cut backs in the future and request additional employee contributions to the health care packages.
Those extra dollars that the teachers give for their own health care will surely outweight the stress of trying to teach double or triple classrooms in the future.
Most of the presentation at the meeting consisted of the typical self-congratulatory statements about how good the school is, and what a good job they are doing.
When the meeting finally got on topic, there was a lot of public comment regarding the cost of salaries and benefits of the staff. It was asked if there are choices (with varying cost) regarding health insurance. School board members justified the current cost, stating that the school is in the state benefits plan, which is the most economical. teachers have a PPO plan, instead of traditional Blue Cross. Mullica teachers currently contribute $400 per year ($8 per week) for their family's health benefits. Teacher aids contribute $200 yearly, administrators contribute $700 yearly for their family's health benefits. One person commented that as a federal employee 6 years ago, she had to contribute $200 per month to insure just herself.
Mr Goldberg stated 4 teacher and 2aid positions would be eliminated, and it is not based on seniorority.
If the budget does not pass, a total of 7 teacher positions could be eliminated. (Note: school enrollment declined form 804 to 724about 2 1/2 years ago. Maybe this reduction in staff should have happened back then). Mr. Goldberg stated he planned to appeal to town committee and/or the county if budget does not pass.
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