There is a good letter in the Press today from someone in EHT who expresses the same sentiments that many of us in Mullica have. The EHT School Board has had a history for giving extremely generous salary increases to its schools’ employees, thereby encouraging the union to pressure surrounding school boards to give similar increases in their districts. We need to take the ability to negotiate all salary increases away from the local boards and give it to the state. Otherwise, we will never solve this problem of runaway school costs.
It's about time EHT schools got cut
Regarding the March 20 story, "Egg Harbor Township schools face tough decisions on budget with $4 million deficit":
I have zero sympathy for the school officials. That is about as much as they had for the taxpayers when they obligated us to paying 4.7 percent raises per year for three years, knowing full well that the country was in a deep recession that hit the residents of Egg Harbor Township particularly hard, as many were casino employees.
For years, the school board has run disingenuous campaigns to get ever-increasing budgets passed. It uses taxpayers' money to target parents and senior citizens, telling the seniors to vote for tax increases freely because they would not have to pay any of them due to their property-tax freezes. That's immoral.
For the rest of us, they use that tired old argument of "it is only the cost of a gallon of milk a day, and it's for the children." That's insulting. We have children in this township who are doing without basic necessities so their parents can continue to feed the beast of the school system. Every other house is for sale, and many are empty. Is driving people to bankruptcy, the food bank or to divorce court due to money pressures all for the children?
It is time for the school system, which takes an incredible 68 percent of our property taxes, to feel some of the pain the rest of us have been feeling for years.
Lowering taxes so people can stay in their homes will help the children the most at this point.
JANIS HETRICK
Egg Harbor Township
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Rather, I would say that the 4.7 percent annual raises were immoral considering the poor economy when they were made and how most taxpayers were suffering financially already. They obviously helped to put the schools the poor financial shape that they now are today, resulting in massive layoffs of staff.
Is everyone missing the fact that Chris Christie is the one that escolated this mess? His personal vendetta against unions in general and NJEA in particular is the major cause for massive layoffs and increased taxes. (Didn't he mention that he would not raise taxes in his campaign BS?)
He did state he would not raise local property taxes on CNBC a few weeks ago, but that's because HE personally can't, he's shoving it on the municipalities. Does he really think we're all that stupid?
Obviously some people are - all that is heard is "those demon unions" not "that demon gov."
Wake up people
Post a Comment