Tuesday, April 17, 2007

School Elections

Today New Jersey celebrates its annual farce. School Election Day. Most people won't vote either because they don't know about it or because they know their vote doesn't matter because if they vote against a tax increase and the budgets are defeated, the resulting cuts will be insignificant if any.

Last year, a record number of school budgets were defeated. Not much was cut. But we did end up getting a sales tax increase and sham of property tax reform.

With most of New Jersey's education spending going to the 31 Abbott districts, how come we don't have a state wide referendum on those budgets?

The school budget I will be voting on is lean. The Board of Education in my town did a good job. I am going to vote against it.

I'm not voting against the kids. There won't be meaningful cuts anyway. I'm voting against the system and to keep the pressure on Trenton to enact meaningful reform. If the majority of budgets pass, the gluttons in Trenton may delude themselves into thinking the electorate is satisfied.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thats just great. Punish the kids in your school district to make a point.
I pay almost 9 grand a year in Taxes. I live in a 1972 4 bedroom house. But I do not complain about my taxes. I get dam good services and dam good schools for my money Municipalities and School districts have some in effeciencies but the truth is they are a hell of alot more effecient at delivering services then the State or Federal govt. So yeah they could do better and should always strive to, but this constant whining and nashing of teeth is absurd. It is the State not the Locals who need to be reigned in.
Sure I could move to East Podunk and only pat $1000 a year in taxes but the schools will stink and police response time will be lousy and I may not get municipal garbage pick up. In short I will get what I pay for.

And while I am on a rant the State has limited the ability of school districts to spend money even if the majority of the people in the town vote for it. What happened to democracy? I have an idea lets put the state budget to a vote and see how often that budget gets passed. I bet my school districts budget gets passed a hell of a lot more often then that travesty the state puts together every year.

You admit your school district does a good job with the budget yet you are going to vote against it anyway. When the school district starts to fail you will be one of the first to start screaming about how our educational system is failing the children and how will we stay competetive if our kids do not get a good education.
SHAME ON YOU. SHAME.