It's a different year, with the same storyline. Another faulty budget, another recommendation from one taxpayer to all the others to reject it.
As discussed and written about it the past, the Arlington Central School District continues to move forward, year after year, with repetitive budget increases. I cannot begin to fathom how Mr. Pepe, et al, sit in their meetings, debate the situation, and arrive at the conclusion that an increase in taxes for the communities they exist in is a proper solution for the forthcoming school year. Worse yet, the so-called contingency budget in the event of appropriate action by the overtaxed voting public is barely less than the regular budget.
Herein lies the most grievous judgemental error that I find. Unless you're leftover from the 1950s and you've just crawled out of your backyard bomb shelter (cue the bad Brendan Fraser movie), one must realize that there is a terrific potential for the recession-beaten men and women of the ASCD taxpaying community to reject anything that adds a single dollar to their current government subtraction. Yet, the ACSD has chosen to slyly make the contingency a few mere percentage points in differential from it's approved one. Now, you can call that ignorance, which I would hope is not the case for such learned people. You could call it a mathematical equation error, but out of all the people who look at the budget figures, I suspect someone can add and subtract correctly. You can call it, as I do, unfettered arrogance, i.e. "they'll approve it, they always do".
In times of difficulty and challenges, leaders succeed understanding the situation the people they represent, sympathizing with their plight, and offering hope for an improved future. What they don't do is help to make a bad situation worse.
P.S. You can start saving money for your budget increase by repaying the material and labor involved in the creation of those little yellow school buses I've seen sprout up in various intersections across the district. Bad enough you badger the kids to tell their parents to vote yes; now you've expanded your advertising campaign by having these items made, I suspect, somewhere in a ACSD-sponsored activity. Perhaps these buses are self-creating and magically appearing; somehow, I doubt it.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
Arlington teachers failed to offer any pay raise concessions to help reduce the budget. Other unions very proactively and with high regard for the district taxpayer rejected raises.
Mr. Pepe should have eliminated teaching positions at all levels to reduce spending. Mr. Pepe should have started by eliminating the new positions that were added at the beginning of the year. Maybe this would have gotten the attention of the union!
Post a Comment