The following e-mail was sent to Bridgewater-Raritan “Key Communicators” including myself this morning, by the Superintendent of the Bridgewater-Raritan School District. Since it is noteworthy information for the entire Bridgewater-Raritan community as well, I’ve included a copy of it in this blog post without additional comment.
“Dick Bergeron:
April 22, 2009
Dear Key Communicators,
As you now know, the 2009-2010 School Budget passed with 3,609 YES votes and 2,314 NO votes. I’d like to thank you for supporting public education in Bridgewater-Raritan and always spreading the good news about the district as key communicators. This election has proven to be historic with the largest voter turnout since 1962 and with one of the widest passage margins in recent memory. Communities across the district, in every polling area, have chosen to invest in education, in spite of the difficult economic times we are all experiencing. We are excited about this opportunity to maintain and improve the educational programs in Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District.
I would like to congratulate the three individuals who won Board seats: Cindy Cullen, Patrick Breslin, and Christine Schneider. I’d also like to thank Richard Guss for his three years of outstanding service to the community in his role as Board member.
Thank you,
Michael Schilder, Superintendent”
Showing posts with label 2009-2010 B-R School Budget. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2009-2010 B-R School Budget. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Still Time to Vote Today; Polls Close at 9:00 pm
The polls for the local school elections have been open since 7:00 am this morning and will remain so until 9:00 pm this evening. If you haven’t been able to cast your vote yet, please get out there and do so despite the damp, rainy weather. The community needs your participation.
If recent voter turnout remains true to results of the last decade, the Bridgewater-Raritan School District will be lucky to see around 4200 registered voters cast their ballots. That is approximately half of some of the turnouts of the 90’s, when there was greater and more diverse community involvement in the education process.
Ongoing efforts to increase voter input by moving the New Jersey school candidate and budget elections to the fall have been consistently unsuccessful, despite the best efforts of the legislature. One proposal would have done so, but at the expense of taking school budget approval away from the citizenry.
I still think that involving Bridgewater Township and Raritan Borough representatives with a review of the Bridgewater-Raritan school budget is not only a positive check, but results in a more thorough representation of the will of the entire Bridgewater-Raritan community.
The only thing standing between you and that review is the nature of your vote on the budget today.
If recent voter turnout remains true to results of the last decade, the Bridgewater-Raritan School District will be lucky to see around 4200 registered voters cast their ballots. That is approximately half of some of the turnouts of the 90’s, when there was greater and more diverse community involvement in the education process.
Ongoing efforts to increase voter input by moving the New Jersey school candidate and budget elections to the fall have been consistently unsuccessful, despite the best efforts of the legislature. One proposal would have done so, but at the expense of taking school budget approval away from the citizenry.
I still think that involving Bridgewater Township and Raritan Borough representatives with a review of the Bridgewater-Raritan school budget is not only a positive check, but results in a more thorough representation of the will of the entire Bridgewater-Raritan community.
The only thing standing between you and that review is the nature of your vote on the budget today.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Catch 22: The Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget
Next Tuesday, April 21st, when the polls open in the morning, you will be asked to vote yes or no on the proposed $133.2 million school budget. If you have gone to administration presentations, especially if you are a parent, you’ve been told, among other claims, that there isn’t much that can be pared back.
The biggest portion of that $133.2 million tab consists of personnel costs which are now running at 81.3%. We are consistently advised that personnel costs are fixed. The assumption is that that they simply cannot be controlled. Try telling that to the millions of other Americans who are on the ever-expanding unemployment lines.
The fact is that the recent Bridgewater-Raritan Boards of Education and their administrations have done a completely insufficient job of managing people costs. Less than two years ago, this board negotiated a three-year wage hike just a shade under 13%, a number completely out-of-line with inflation and with personnel performance criteria. Today, inflation is running near zero.
If that wage hike had been just 50% of what it is, the budgets during the current three-year wage increase period would be less by millions of dollars.
This school tax eats up 64% of Bridgewater’s real estate tax levy. And things won’t get better in Bridgewater or Raritan, until the Board of Education realizes what’s going on in the real world and acknowledges that the education establishment is part of that world.
The biggest portion of that $133.2 million tab consists of personnel costs which are now running at 81.3%. We are consistently advised that personnel costs are fixed. The assumption is that that they simply cannot be controlled. Try telling that to the millions of other Americans who are on the ever-expanding unemployment lines.
The fact is that the recent Bridgewater-Raritan Boards of Education and their administrations have done a completely insufficient job of managing people costs. Less than two years ago, this board negotiated a three-year wage hike just a shade under 13%, a number completely out-of-line with inflation and with personnel performance criteria. Today, inflation is running near zero.
If that wage hike had been just 50% of what it is, the budgets during the current three-year wage increase period would be less by millions of dollars.
This school tax eats up 64% of Bridgewater’s real estate tax levy. And things won’t get better in Bridgewater or Raritan, until the Board of Education realizes what’s going on in the real world and acknowledges that the education establishment is part of that world.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
School Budget Lobbying Shenanigans
If the $133.2 million budget proposed for the Bridgewater-Raritan School District is so worthy of passage, why is it that there is such reluctance by groups advocating voter acceptance to identify themselves?
Several weeks ago, “Vote Yes” road signs bore the source of an out-of-town group. Those signs have since disappeared. The latest incarnations are very visible white-and-blue signs along the district’s roadways which read, “Vote ‘Yes’ For the School Budget - - April 21st.” Those signs bear no source identification.
I wanted to check out the legality of such an omission, as well as to be fair to the unknown group or individuals who are planting these signs in Bridgewater and Raritan: I called the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, the entity which has oversight responsibility over election behavior.
In a discussion with a compliance officer at the Commission, I was advised that all political signs are required to be labeled with their source, and was directed to the sections of the Compliance Manual which explain this mandate.
The regulations specify that “political communications” such as roadside signs must be labeled “with a political identification statement” that is, “(‘paid for by’ language).” The blue/white “Vote Yes” signs sprouting up on Bridgewater and Raritan byways bear no such labeling.
. . . Which brings me to my first point: Just which persons or organizations are lobbying for the budget’s endorsement, and why are they so reluctant to publicly disclose themselves? This, after all, is not the Kremlin.
Note: Alleged election law violations are subject to investigation by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.
Several weeks ago, “Vote Yes” road signs bore the source of an out-of-town group. Those signs have since disappeared. The latest incarnations are very visible white-and-blue signs along the district’s roadways which read, “Vote ‘Yes’ For the School Budget - - April 21st.” Those signs bear no source identification.
I wanted to check out the legality of such an omission, as well as to be fair to the unknown group or individuals who are planting these signs in Bridgewater and Raritan: I called the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, the entity which has oversight responsibility over election behavior.
In a discussion with a compliance officer at the Commission, I was advised that all political signs are required to be labeled with their source, and was directed to the sections of the Compliance Manual which explain this mandate.
The regulations specify that “political communications” such as roadside signs must be labeled “with a political identification statement” that is, “(‘paid for by’ language).” The blue/white “Vote Yes” signs sprouting up on Bridgewater and Raritan byways bear no such labeling.
. . . Which brings me to my first point: Just which persons or organizations are lobbying for the budget’s endorsement, and why are they so reluctant to publicly disclose themselves? This, after all, is not the Kremlin.
Note: Alleged election law violations are subject to investigation by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget: Is It Yes, or is It No?
Last week, every Bridgewater and Raritan resident should have received a four-page flyer in the mail from the B-R Board of Education entitled, “The 2009-2010 School Budget”.
The flyer shows five people running for three seats on the school board. Each candidate’s background appears on the back page: Three incumbents wish to retain their seats: Cindy Cullen, current board president; Richard Guss, and Christine Schneider. Two challengers, Patrick Breslin and Stan Serafin hope to unseat two of those incumbents.
The remaining three pages of the flyer are devoted to summarizing the budget and to advise you of what might happen if the budget doesn’t get approved. This is a first. Typically, boards have not gone public in advance with specific items considered for elimination if you don’t vote ‘Yes.’ The list of these items was referred to as “The Doomsday Chart” by Superintendent Michael Schilder at a board meeting.
A person doesn’t have to be a cynic to think that this strategy is aimed directly at intimidating parents. One evening, earlier this year, a standing-room-only turnout of parents showed up at a board meeting, demanding to know why athletic programs were being eliminated from the proposed 2009-2010 budget. Not true, of course, but the rumor mill had done its job. Rumors don’t fly by themselves. Somebody sets them into motion.
With one exception that I know of, the B-R BOE has been very careful not to go on record about publicly lobbying for or against passage of the budget – a practice prohibited under New Jersey law.
Now, it seems that someone may have slipped. In the official flyer which you just received, the superintendent and board seemed to have missed something in their proofreading.
In the section on advice about “How to Help,” you are advised that “There are a number of ways you can help.” One of them is for you to “Join a campaign” such as, “CSA Vote Yes.”
The object of that flyer was to communicate information and to encourage a large, representative voter turnout on April 21st, not, as I have steadfastly maintained, for the board or administration to lobby one way or the other.
The flyer shows five people running for three seats on the school board. Each candidate’s background appears on the back page: Three incumbents wish to retain their seats: Cindy Cullen, current board president; Richard Guss, and Christine Schneider. Two challengers, Patrick Breslin and Stan Serafin hope to unseat two of those incumbents.
The remaining three pages of the flyer are devoted to summarizing the budget and to advise you of what might happen if the budget doesn’t get approved. This is a first. Typically, boards have not gone public in advance with specific items considered for elimination if you don’t vote ‘Yes.’ The list of these items was referred to as “The Doomsday Chart” by Superintendent Michael Schilder at a board meeting.
A person doesn’t have to be a cynic to think that this strategy is aimed directly at intimidating parents. One evening, earlier this year, a standing-room-only turnout of parents showed up at a board meeting, demanding to know why athletic programs were being eliminated from the proposed 2009-2010 budget. Not true, of course, but the rumor mill had done its job. Rumors don’t fly by themselves. Somebody sets them into motion.
With one exception that I know of, the B-R BOE has been very careful not to go on record about publicly lobbying for or against passage of the budget – a practice prohibited under New Jersey law.
Now, it seems that someone may have slipped. In the official flyer which you just received, the superintendent and board seemed to have missed something in their proofreading.
In the section on advice about “How to Help,” you are advised that “There are a number of ways you can help.” One of them is for you to “Join a campaign” such as, “CSA Vote Yes.”
The object of that flyer was to communicate information and to encourage a large, representative voter turnout on April 21st, not, as I have steadfastly maintained, for the board or administration to lobby one way or the other.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget Enters Home Stretch
The most prominent item at Tuesday evening’s Bridgewater-Raritan School Board meeting at which about 12 people were in attendance, was a closing presentation on the 2009-2010 school budget. According to School Superintendent Michael Schilder, there is “substantially no change” to the preliminary number of $133.2 million. That figure will now appear on the April 21st school election ballot.
Schilder went on to explain that the extra $573,000 recently received from the state (in addition to the $12 million already allocated) has been applied to reduce the increase in school real estate taxes in Bridgewater and Raritan.
Bridgewater residents of a $450,000 home will see a $204.85 jump in the school portion of their tax bill. Raritan residents will see their school taxes jump $278.25 on a $350,000 home. Those amounts don’t include additional tax assessments for the municipal, county and other portions of your real estate bill.
Last year the school budget soaked up 64% of the entire real estate tab for Bridgewater home owners.
By the time you vote on the budget, the administration will have held 19 information sessions dubbed, “Community Presentations.” But, with the exception of required presentations at board meetings and others to the Raritan Borough Council and to the Bridgewater Township Council, all other meetings are on school grounds and directed at PTO groups.
None of these meetings has been widely publicized outside of the school community. This could easily create the impression to the general public that the B-R Board of Education and its Administration are lobbying special interest groups for passage of this $133.2 million budget.
Schilder went on to explain that the extra $573,000 recently received from the state (in addition to the $12 million already allocated) has been applied to reduce the increase in school real estate taxes in Bridgewater and Raritan.
Bridgewater residents of a $450,000 home will see a $204.85 jump in the school portion of their tax bill. Raritan residents will see their school taxes jump $278.25 on a $350,000 home. Those amounts don’t include additional tax assessments for the municipal, county and other portions of your real estate bill.
Last year the school budget soaked up 64% of the entire real estate tab for Bridgewater home owners.
By the time you vote on the budget, the administration will have held 19 information sessions dubbed, “Community Presentations.” But, with the exception of required presentations at board meetings and others to the Raritan Borough Council and to the Bridgewater Township Council, all other meetings are on school grounds and directed at PTO groups.
None of these meetings has been widely publicized outside of the school community. This could easily create the impression to the general public that the B-R Board of Education and its Administration are lobbying special interest groups for passage of this $133.2 million budget.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)