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Health & Fitness

School Budgets

With over 90 percent of school budgets passing on a regular basis and property taxes soaring, maybe it's time to rethink how we fund education.

After about five minutes of reading the flyer for the 2011/12 Half Hollow Hills school budget I noticed a couple of items: (it took me longer to type this)

  • We are comparing ourselves to the Nassau and Suffolk County averages as it relates to spending per student.  Why not compare us to districts that spend less and get better results?  Why compare with the biggest spenders?
  • AAA is written across the front of the flyer.  Am I supposed to infer that we are rated AAA somewhere, similar to bonds?  It’s actually just a logo and has nothing to do with ratings.  That was clever.
  • Total enrollment is down for the 6th year in a row but the budget is up for the 100th year in a row.
  • The budget has increased more than $8 million from last year – 75 percent of that increase ($6 million) is for employee benefits.  (I should have been a school teacher)
  • The pie chart is designed to reflect that most of the total spending goes toward educational programs and only little slivers goes toward the administration.  I almost fell for that one.
  • Scare Tactic Alert!  — A little blurb about how the sky will fall if the budget doesn’t pass.  If it doesn’t pass they’re coming right after your kids.  And they’re going to start with CUTTING PROGRAMS!  Not employee benefits which make up 75 percent of the increase.
  • The superintendent is retiring.  The assistant superintendent is leaving.  The school board has no idea who they’re going to get to work at the minimum wage of  $175,000/year so they’ve invited the public to join in on this merry hunt. (Forget being a teacher,  I should have been a school administrator.)

Next … the grand experiment on school transparency. 

In other words, “Let’s see how long it takes them to answer my questions about the budget.”

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