Nearly 30% of all purchases made in Abbott districts were excessive or lacked proper documentation, according to a report in the Star Ledger. $83 million flushed down the black hole, and that doesn't included the bloated payrolls.
Attention Trenton Democrats: This is the place to cut.
InTheLobby has analysis that will make your blood boil.
Let Me Count the Ways
1 day ago
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2 comments:
Yet Trenton "grandfathered" in spending levels at the Abbott districts when they approved new school funding law. Most school districts simply don't have the money that they have lavished on abbott schools.The only sad part is it's taken this long for Trenton to wise up to the facts... or did they really want to?
The reality it that 50% of education dollars go to the Abbott districts and there the ones in
heavily democratic districts. Let's not forget that they are also under STATE TAKEOVER while performing the amazing disappearance of tax dollars on frivilous expenditures.
Will the deduct these friviolous expendidture from their next budget payments, I think not. They will just go after more of the surburban school district money to cover up their incompentence!
The spending is worse than it shows on paper in my humble opinion. Here in Long Branch, the following is also true:
1) School uniforms are required. My usual uniform complaints aside, to make the uniform complete, a badge is required. The badges certainly cost money but are given away to students for "free" (ie, paid for by you and I). My quick research shows these badges for sale around $2/each (maybe the school has a cheaper source, but let's estimate) - multiply $2/each by a few thousand students and maybe a dozen badges given away for "free" over the course of the year to each student and suddenly uniforms aren't so cheap (for us tax payers) anymore.
2) The school system here in Long Branch is also happy to give out polo-shirts (part of the uniform), with the badge already ironed on, for "free" (to students). These aren't those fancy, high-quality K-mart brand shirts, but even at $1/shirt (which might also be expensive for the quality they give away), and then $2 more for the badge, meaning $3/shirt - giving those away also costs you and I some cash. BTW - when my 6th grader went to school without the required uniform shirt one day, he was given one of these (for "free"), so to you other tax payers in the state, thanks! Glad you paid to put a uniform on the kid, he'll certainly learn more when dressed in a polo-shirt like the other students. Clearly the clothing in schools was the problem all along, who'd of thunk it? I do apologize that I ruined the shirt you purchased for me after one wash when it fell apart, I'll be sure to ask for another and recycle this junk one as a shop rag.
3) There are nice, high-powered, large screen Dell Laptops sitting around the LB schools (somewhere) that were purchased for students because the students "needed" these to learn. These computers now go unused because there are desktops in the school that get used instead and the laptops were either being damaged, lost, stolen or misused. Glad we paid for the laptops to not get used. Thinking back, there was never a computer in school back in the day (10-15 years ago?) when I was just a boy, but now look at me go, making an honest living sitting in front of a computer, the irony that I didn't "need" a computer to learn and yet I could get straight As in school AND learned how to operate (and program) a computer at the same time, and I didn't have to wear a uniform in high-school either.
4) LB School Super makes over $200K/year - The online salary websites are suggesting $95K-$110K would be much closer to the average. Maybe Joe F is doing a great job, or maybe he's not, but I'm thinking it's hard to justify how someone is worth twice the average in a "poor" Abbott district.
More money doesn't mean a better education, uniforms don't mean a better education, and a higher paid super doesn't mean a better education. I don't pretend to have the solution to a better education system, but I certainly know that Abbott district funding isn't the solution.
My $.02...
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