Author	Message
Guest	Posted: Wed, Apr 21 2010, 7:24 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair Agreed, that is what I did. I thought it was irresponsible to vote for candidates I did not know about, plus all three candidates for three seats seemed a fait a compli anyway. I was more concerned about the budget, that's why I voted.
Guest	Posted: Wed, Apr 21 2010, 9:53 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair Guest wrote: What strikes me is how many just voted on the budget. Over 800 votes and the average BOE was 600 of 3 unopposed seats. So 200 never even opted to select a BOE member. I really think April elections should be moved to November. If they don't know the candidates maybe they decided it was more appropriate / responsible not to vote them up or down, especially knowing it would not change the outcome anyway. In many respects this is better than them blindly voting for people.
Guest	Posted: Wed, Apr 21 2010, 8:35 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair Were there any write ins?
Guest	Posted: Wed, Apr 21 2010, 7:29 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair What strikes me is how many just voted on the budget. Over 800 votes and the average BOE was 600 of 3 unopposed seats. So 200 never even opted to select a BOE member. I really think April elections should be moved to November.
Guest 2	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 11:10 pm EDT    Post subject: It passed!!!!!! YES it passed CRANBURY THREE 3-YEAR TERMS √ Michael Ferrante 603 √ Wendi Patella* 604 √ Kathleen S. Wasson 620 SCHOOL BUDGET √ Yes 514 No 291 PROPOSED TAX LEVY CHANGE 5.2 percent decrease; $201.50 increase for a home assessed at $617,254 PROPOSED STAFF CUTS 23 positions --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dan Mulligan	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 11:08 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair CRANBURY THREE 3-YEAR TERMS √ Michael Ferrante 603 √ Wendi Patella* 604 √ Kathleen S. Wasson 620 SCHOOL BUDGET √ Yes 514 No 291 PROPOSED TAX LEVY CHANGE 5.2 percent decrease; $201.50 increase for a home assessed at $617,254 PROPOSED STAFF CUTS 23 positions
Guest 2	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 10:59 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair Keeps on showing the same results before I posted: School budget Yes No??? otherwise, I would not have sent the previous post.
Dan Mulligan	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 10:49 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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
Guest 2	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 10:37 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair Does anyone know the results yet? Suppose to be available as early as 9:30 pm....
Guest	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 11:28 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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.
Guest	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 11:24 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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.
Guest	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 9:55 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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?
Guest 2	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 9:48 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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.
Guest	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 8:29 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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.
Guest	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 7:59 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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?
Guest	Posted: Tue, Apr 20 2010, 7:19 am EDT    Post subject: Re: The School Budget Vote and the Science Fair 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.