Taxes and Crickets

Part 1- TAXES

GA  tapped a friend for the highlights of last night's 2011-2012 School Budget presentation at the BoE by Business Administrator Robert Davis. She was kind enough to forward these:

•  The budget for 2011-12 is at the lowest allowable tax levy by law.  It cannot be reduced by one more dollar.

• Absorbed 5 Million dollars in state aid cuts in the past 18 months and still was able to keep the tax levy flat, increase student programs and support teachers.

• Total Salaries and Benefits were reduced by $1,362,162

• Charter School/Private School tuition for Special Ed/Early Childhood funding/Non public schools = $15,275,623 or 25% of total District budget of $$59,830,951

• Charter School expenses alone are $6,274,090 of the $36,758,685 tax levy, or 17% of the tax levy

WOW.

An impressive performance by the Kids First-majority School Board.  To recap:

The tax levy for next year's budget is FLAT.  And can't go down further BY LAW (per State formula).

And, in spite of the loss of 5 million bucks of State aid, the Kids First-majority BoE slashed $1.36 M in payroll and benefits.  

Jeez Louise.

Here come the crickets.

Part 2- CRICKETS



That's the sound GA expects we'll hear from the School Board member, Maureen Sullivan,  who wrote the following in her anti-Kids First diatribe published in this week's Hoboken Reporter*  

(*"she" refers to her School Board colleague Theresa Minutillo)

Um... looks like Minutillo did understand the tax levy was at the allowable minimum and Sullivan didn't.  

Methinks Sullivan is too preoccupied with trashing her School Board colleagues in public to measure her own words.

And Sullivan's trashing continues in private- if you call electronic 'newsletters' private.  GA was forwarded one of them this week- the subject line reads "news from Maureen Sullivan". I am declining to publish it because in it Sullivan leaks closed session Board discussions, an ethical violation which I want no part of.

However, I will forward this 'newsletter' to any individual who wishes to see how this self-promoting  elected official undermines her School Board colleagues in a most personal and unethical way.  Which does not serve our community well at all. Children and taxpayers alike.  Request it here.

It's GA's opinion that  the Kids First majority School Board should be thanked for a job well done, and for giving us hundreds of hours of personal and family time without compensation- NOT trashed by a colleague who ought to comport herself with the dignity of her elected office.