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Guest
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 Posted: Mon, Apr 19 2010, 3:02 pm EDT Post subject: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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In what has been a tradition over the last several years the School budget vote and the Science fair both happen to be tomorrow.
Is it an effort to have parents vote yes for the budget? Since they are feeling all warm and fuzzy about how great the school is and how great little Johnny and Suzie are doing in school?
Nahhhhhh I am sure its just a coincidence.
Vote No and send a message. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 19 2010, 3:17 pm EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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What?
What message are you talking about?
From what I have read, teachers are taking pay reductions, the school is cutting programs and services as a result of state funding cut. The school tax increase will help meet some of the shortfall, but not enough to avoid these cuts.
I salute the teachers and school administrators for sacrificing for the students. I support them, and will gladly pay the $200 or so in tax increase over the next year. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 19 2010, 3:26 pm EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| What message are you trying to send by voting "no"? The budget will then go to the township council for even further cuts. Why not come to the informational session tonight at 7:00 PM and ask relevant questions in order to cast an educated vote rather than a non specific message. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Mon, Apr 19 2010, 4:25 pm EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| The same poster keeps talking about the voite no message and all the remaining fat they can still cut but consistently supplies no details when asked. You can't count the teachers salaries or the various state-mandated expenses (millions for special ed and required transportation that take over 25% of the budget) because those items are beyond the control of the School Board the Township Committee. So if you really want anyone to listen to you, please be specific vis a vie the publically available budget document on what is within their power that you propose the cut? |
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LaLa Land
Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 6:55 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Guest wrote: | | What message are you trying to send by voting "no"? The budget will then go to the township council for even further cuts. Why not come to the informational session tonight at 7:00 PM and ask relevant questions in order to cast an educated vote rather than a non specific message. |
The TC will not and has never recommend further cuts to the school budget. You must first vote "NO" for the school budget for it to be re-examined by the school board. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 7:04 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| I have no idea what this poster is trying to say. The last time the budget was defeated the TC did there review and cut into music the Princeton Busses and Kindergarten. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 7:19 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Look folks this is rather basic. All we are voting on is the ability of the school to raise $14,682,679 for the next year. If you vote no it will mean you think this is too much. If you vote yes it will mean you think this is acceptable. No other signal will be gleaned by the TC and BOE. You are not indicating which programs you love or loathe you are simply voting on a number. Any other "signal" you are sending will only be seen by you. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 7:59 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Guest wrote: | | Look folks this is rather basic. All we are voting on is the ability of the school to raise $14,682,679 for the next year. If you vote no it will mean you think this is too much. If you vote yes it will mean you think this is acceptable. No other signal will be gleaned by the TC and BOE. You are not indicating which programs you love or loathe you are simply voting on a number. Any other "signal" you are sending will only be seen by you. |
Voting no abstractly is irresponsible. Research and determine what you think is elective in the budget then vote no if you don't agree with their conclusions. But just voting no because you thing cutting $1.2M from the budget isn't enough is lazy and dumb.
As someone who has researched it, I would be curious what you think should be cut further? |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 8:29 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| I agree voting no blindly is irresponsible. However, I have yet to see a budget of any sort that does not have fat in it somewhere. Whether at work or at home, there are always items of fat or nice to have not want to have items. To say the school budget and therefore should be approved is the same to me as someone simply voting no. |
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Guest 2
Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 9:48 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Guest wrote: | | I agree voting no blindly is irresponsible. However, I have yet to see a budget of any sort that does not have fat in it somewhere. Whether at work or at home, there are always items of fat or nice to have not want to have items. To say the school budget and therefore should be approved is the same to me as someone simply voting no. |
So according to your theory, there is NEVER a budget that is OK. Every year we should do our best, make hard choices, debate, consider -- but at the end -- we should vote NO just "Because I'm sure you could do better, cut more".
Doesn't that simply set up a system where the BOE is incented to NOT make hard choices and not debate, etc. because in the end residents will vote "NO" anyway. If you don't reward good work with a "Yes" vote -- you won't get good work.
Folks complain that no one wants to serve on the BOE and it is an attitude like that expressed above that further drives good people from volunteering. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 9:55 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Guest 2 wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | I agree voting no blindly is irresponsible. However, I have yet to see a budget of any sort that does not have fat in it somewhere. Whether at work or at home, there are always items of fat or nice to have not want to have items. To say the school budget and therefore should be approved is the same to me as someone simply voting no. |
So according to your theory, there is NEVER a budget that is OK. Every year we should do our best, make hard choices, debate, consider -- but at the end -- we should vote NO just "Because I'm sure you could do better, cut more".
Doesn't that simply set up a system where the BOE is incented to NOT make hard choices and not debate, etc. because in the end residents will vote "NO" anyway. If you don't reward good work with a "Yes" vote -- you won't get good work.
Folks complain that no one wants to serve on the BOE and it is an attitude like that expressed above that further drives good people from volunteering. |
So we should then just vote yes? |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 11:24 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Guest wrote: | | I agree voting no blindly is irresponsible. However, I have yet to see a budget of any sort that does not have fat in it somewhere. Whether at work or at home, there are always items of fat or nice to have not want to have items. To say the school budget and therefore should be approved is the same to me as someone simply voting no. |
You are contradicting yourself in a single sentence. You say you agree voting blindly is wrong then proceed to say that you can vote blindly because it is universally true that all budgets have fat no matter how many revisions they go through (keeping in mind this current budget up for vote was already revised down several times and incremental cuts each time). So you are making a sweeping generalization is is in fact the equivilent of voting blindly because you don't feel the need to actually look at the budget or do any work before making your vote and you apparently are disregarding the work of your fellow neighbors on the Board who did do this work. Nice. |
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Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 11:28 am EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Guest wrote: | | Guest 2 wrote: | | Guest wrote: | | I agree voting no blindly is irresponsible. However, I have yet to see a budget of any sort that does not have fat in it somewhere. Whether at work or at home, there are always items of fat or nice to have not want to have items. To say the school budget and therefore should be approved is the same to me as someone simply voting no. |
So according to your theory, there is NEVER a budget that is OK. Every year we should do our best, make hard choices, debate, consider -- but at the end -- we should vote NO just "Because I'm sure you could do better, cut more".
Doesn't that simply set up a system where the BOE is incented to NOT make hard choices and not debate, etc. because in the end residents will vote "NO" anyway. If you don't reward good work with a "Yes" vote -- you won't get good work.
Folks complain that no one wants to serve on the BOE and it is an attitude like that expressed above that further drives good people from volunteering. |
So we should then just vote yes? |
Wow, you really are lazy. It's not that complicated. The budget has been available online to the public for weeks. They have held multiple public meetings to answer any questions about it. They sent a copy to everyone with breakdowns and comparisons to the previous year, etc. They could not have made it easier for anyone interested to do a little work studying it and deciding for themselves if they see wasteful spending. Vote yes or no on the specifics, not on some abstract generalization about spending.
Personally I have voted no the two previous years before this, when they had increases year-over-year and were clearly spending for electives like smart boards, etc. (which they cut on the last revision last year and had the PTO donate, though they still had to pay for training for them). This year I again looked at the facts and am voting yes. They have cut year-over-year spending in virtually every category except those mandated by the state. I vote on the facts. |
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Guest 2
Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 10:37 pm EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Does anyone know the results yet? Suppose to be available as early as 9:30 pm.... |
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Dan Mulligan
Joined: Fri, Sep 19 2008, 5:41 pm EDT
Posts: 172
Location: Old Cranbury Road
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 10:49 pm EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Guest 2 wrote: | | Does anyone know the results yet? Suppose to be available as early as 9:30 pm.... |
Turn out was very heavy tonight at the polls as I stood in line for about 30 minutes and the workers said it was unusually busy from 6 pm on.
So I think its safe to say we had a high turnout. As for results they should be posted here soon...
http://www.nj.com/news/local/index.ssf/2010/04/middlesex_county_school_budget.html |
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Guest 2
Guest
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| Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 10:59 pm EDT Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair |
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| Keeps on showing the same results before I posted: School budget Yes No??? otherwise, I would not have sent the previous post. |
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