Dance…

It Passed!

Thank God the school budget passed. I was glad to see that the people were able to separate the “Questions” from the Budget.  But I am still disappointed on the turnout. It wasn’t raining (although the traffic was terrible due to the Lodi and Route 17 flooding problems). Now we can move forward and help our schools be the best they can be.

Those other issues…the windows, the offices.  Maybe it is time to trim some “fat” from the budget and SAVE the money from there and apply it to these projects in a couple of years. Like you are supposed to do it. Not go to the “well” i.e. the taxpayer, everytime you need a chunk of money for a project.  And its not like this is a project that just came up.

 What do we we tell our kids when they want a “big ticket” item? “You need to save for that, don’t you?” Same thing. BOE. 

Misc…and then some

It’s been a busy last couple of weeks and I haven’t had a chance to post. I have been writing when I had a breather and saving the posts but never had a chance to actually finish a “thought”.  So I decided to kind of put them all together instead.

School Board Budget and Election

It’s a tough sell.  As much as we need to get a budget passed so it doesn’t end up in the hands of the Bergen County Dems c/o Saccomano, Introna, Altobelli and DiNanno,  there is too much talk on the street about both the Ballot questions and the budget increase. 

Looking at it from the Seniors point of view and anyone else on a truly fixed/tight  income, the tax increase of $396 for the budget and the ballot question is 4 to 5 weeks of  groceries for this group of people. Gas for their car at $2.60+ a gallon, energy costs that make one think twice about turning up the heat or turning on the air conditioning, this potential school budget increase is a “deal-breaker” for many of these citizens. They love this town, have raised their children here but are frustrated with the cost of staying here.

Will parents rally to save this budget?  I hope so but I have spoken to many parents in the last week or so (it is a major topic of conversation with everyone) that have expressed concern about this school budget and the costs to their own daily budgets.  They too, are frustrated.

I have a copy of the presentation in front of me from March 21st. Looking at the pie chart that shows the 2007-2008 Approriations by spending category I saw 10% of the budget ($2,000,ooo) in School Admin and Guidance and District Administration.  By finding just 10% savings in this non-instructional category $200,000 could be saved. There is the cost of changing the offices in the elementary schools or a decrease in the charge back to the taxpayers. Are there other Admin cuts that can also be made and not impact the teachers? How do we stand with getting teachers to contribute to their benefits?

Staff Information

Student/Administrator Ratio    School State Average 2005-06 143.9 184.2 2004-05 118.0 182.1 2003-04 117.9 186.7

It’s a tough choice for the Board of Ed candidates. I feel that they are all qualified in their own ways.  I have my three. For all of them it will be a matter a “getting-out-the-vote” as it always is in this election.

I hope I am wrong and the budget passes. If it doesn’t the next step after this budget is mangled by the Council might be to look at Regionalization with Wood-Ridge again.  It’s time. We can’t afford not to this time around.  Here are two great small towns that could create a terrific school district if we can get past the “old-school” animosity and do what is best for our kids and the taxpayers.

Project completion

I find it very interesting that the Dem’s engineering pick, Maser Consulting, ”decided” to give the projects back to Job & Job.  This has caused additional months of delays to all the on-going projects. I finally saw the bids in the newspaper for the Municipal parking lot. http://www.publicnoticeads.com/NJ/search/view.asp?T=PN&id=272\462007_5989892.HTM

The bids need to be in by 4/27.  Let’s hope we can see some work started by June 1.

 At the last Council meeting it was announced that the  bid specs for Depken will be going out via Job in the next two weeks.  They were held up by Dem  “pay-to-play” and the fact that Maser couldn’t make a buck out of the Depken project to make it worth their while. So they gave it back to Job.   Will we have a field for Jr. and High School football programs in September? The Dems have wasted alot of time for everyone. You will be seeing them make alot of “appearances” in the next few months trying to get into the good graces of the voters of HH.  Just remember what they haven’t done for us except embarrass our town with their antics and lack of commonsense. They aren’t there for HH. Only the money that they can bring in as the flunkys of Joe Ferriero, the Bergen County Dem Chairman.  

The upcoming elections

All I will say at this point that it should be an interesting year for all parties.  Our little town and its politics seem to hold a fascination for many non-residents. Interesting, isn’t it?

BOE Candidates and Budget

FYE

From last week’s Bergen Record.

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MDcmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTcxMDQ5OTMmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXky