J
jlw
Guest
This a.m.on The Corner:
SCHOOL BUDGET [John Derbyshire]
Just got back from the school bus stop. Stood there chatting with the neighborhood moms for 10 minutes. The big news is, our school budget got voted down yesterday.
The budget proposal voted down would have raised school spending (which comprises over 56 percent of my property tax bill) by seven percent. That would be about $200 out of my pocket. But even after we’ve voted the darn thing down, the budget will still go up four point something percent anyway, because of state mandates. And they’ll probably just put the budget up for a vote again, and depend on voter fatigue to get it passed eventually. So the news is not all good. Still, it’s nice to know people have taken some kind of a stand against the ever-swelling public sector.
Illegal immigration was lurking under the surface here. Even among these moms – nice middle-class northeastern American liberals who have internalized all the “tolerance” and “diversity” stuff – phrases like “people who shouldn’t be here” popped up a couple of times. Budget-wise, though, that’s a scam too, as the local costs of illegal immigration – things like ESL classes – are under state mandates. The local education bureaucrats will cut Orchestra and Chess Club, not the special programs for children of our our “undocumented” guests.
Another factor is the rising awareness & resentment among people working in the private sector of the widening gap between themselves and public employees. Here in Long Island, one teacher in 12 makes over $100,000 a year (according to last Sunday’s NY Times Long Island section). That’s with wellnigh guaranteed employment, masses of fully-paid vacation, and a gold-plated benefits package. A schoolteacher-cop married couple is in the upper middle class. This, while private-sector workers are struggling to stay afloat in a fast-changing economy.
I voted against the budget. I don’t even look into the numbers, I just automatically vote down any budget proposal. I know they want more of my hard-earned money, and I know they’ll waste it. Let them cut, we’ll cope.
SCHOOL BUDGETS [John Derbyshire]
Several supporting posts from taxpayers.
—Reader A: “I have worked as a supplier to government institutions for years. Let’s say the maintenance department has a budget of $100,000 a year, but they only spend $30,000. Next year’s budget will be $30,000. That’s a great system, for me as someone who supplies the schools with heating equipment because at the end of the year they will just buy to maintain the budget. My question is always, ‘What is the incentive for being fiscally responsible?’ Answer - less of a budget. The wonderful leviathan at work.”
—Reader B: “When taxpayers [in my district] demanded more AP high school courses to justify bigger budgets (we were sick of funding new fields, gyms, sports programs), the number quickly jumped from 6 to 20. Well, guess what. Only 30% of the students who take the AP courses are passing them! Don’t know if the problem is stupid kids, stupid teachers, or a little of both. But there is no accountability whatsoever. The school website brags about the 20 courses, but does not reveal the success rate. When I publicly asked for the data at an 8th grade parents’ informational meeting, I got quizzical looks, shrugs, and this answer: ‘Most pass.’ A few minutes of Internet searching and I had caught them in a lie.”
I’m going to continue voting down any and all local spending proposals every chance I get. You’ll cut school buses? I have a car. You’ll cut police? I have guns.
The only way to kill municipal socialism is to starve it to death.
RE: SCHOOL BUDGETS [John Derbyshire]
Good point from a reader: "A quick way to debunk the ‘we need more money’ claims from public schools: calculate how much they are spending per class.
"Lets suppose the district is spending $8,000 per student, which I believe is below the national average and well below what they spend in your region. If each class has 20 students, which again would be quite low, they are spending $160,000 per class. If there are 25 students then its $200,000. On what? Pay the teacher $80,000 and you still have $80,000 left for the building, administrators, buses, books, etc, $120,000 if you use the bigger class.
"Give me $100,000 to educate 20 kids for a year and I’ll gladly quit my job as an attorney, rent the necessary facilities, and provide a much better education to them than the public schools do.
“As a homeowner who would under no circumstances allow any of my five children to attend any public school (which means I am giving up a $1/2 million government subsidy), I find the amounts the government spends on schools to be utterly outrageous.”
SCHOOL BUDGET [John Derbyshire]
Just got back from the school bus stop. Stood there chatting with the neighborhood moms for 10 minutes. The big news is, our school budget got voted down yesterday.
The budget proposal voted down would have raised school spending (which comprises over 56 percent of my property tax bill) by seven percent. That would be about $200 out of my pocket. But even after we’ve voted the darn thing down, the budget will still go up four point something percent anyway, because of state mandates. And they’ll probably just put the budget up for a vote again, and depend on voter fatigue to get it passed eventually. So the news is not all good. Still, it’s nice to know people have taken some kind of a stand against the ever-swelling public sector.
Illegal immigration was lurking under the surface here. Even among these moms – nice middle-class northeastern American liberals who have internalized all the “tolerance” and “diversity” stuff – phrases like “people who shouldn’t be here” popped up a couple of times. Budget-wise, though, that’s a scam too, as the local costs of illegal immigration – things like ESL classes – are under state mandates. The local education bureaucrats will cut Orchestra and Chess Club, not the special programs for children of our our “undocumented” guests.
Another factor is the rising awareness & resentment among people working in the private sector of the widening gap between themselves and public employees. Here in Long Island, one teacher in 12 makes over $100,000 a year (according to last Sunday’s NY Times Long Island section). That’s with wellnigh guaranteed employment, masses of fully-paid vacation, and a gold-plated benefits package. A schoolteacher-cop married couple is in the upper middle class. This, while private-sector workers are struggling to stay afloat in a fast-changing economy.
I voted against the budget. I don’t even look into the numbers, I just automatically vote down any budget proposal. I know they want more of my hard-earned money, and I know they’ll waste it. Let them cut, we’ll cope.
SCHOOL BUDGETS [John Derbyshire]
Several supporting posts from taxpayers.
—Reader A: “I have worked as a supplier to government institutions for years. Let’s say the maintenance department has a budget of $100,000 a year, but they only spend $30,000. Next year’s budget will be $30,000. That’s a great system, for me as someone who supplies the schools with heating equipment because at the end of the year they will just buy to maintain the budget. My question is always, ‘What is the incentive for being fiscally responsible?’ Answer - less of a budget. The wonderful leviathan at work.”
—Reader B: “When taxpayers [in my district] demanded more AP high school courses to justify bigger budgets (we were sick of funding new fields, gyms, sports programs), the number quickly jumped from 6 to 20. Well, guess what. Only 30% of the students who take the AP courses are passing them! Don’t know if the problem is stupid kids, stupid teachers, or a little of both. But there is no accountability whatsoever. The school website brags about the 20 courses, but does not reveal the success rate. When I publicly asked for the data at an 8th grade parents’ informational meeting, I got quizzical looks, shrugs, and this answer: ‘Most pass.’ A few minutes of Internet searching and I had caught them in a lie.”
I’m going to continue voting down any and all local spending proposals every chance I get. You’ll cut school buses? I have a car. You’ll cut police? I have guns.
The only way to kill municipal socialism is to starve it to death.
RE: SCHOOL BUDGETS [John Derbyshire]
Good point from a reader: "A quick way to debunk the ‘we need more money’ claims from public schools: calculate how much they are spending per class.
"Lets suppose the district is spending $8,000 per student, which I believe is below the national average and well below what they spend in your region. If each class has 20 students, which again would be quite low, they are spending $160,000 per class. If there are 25 students then its $200,000. On what? Pay the teacher $80,000 and you still have $80,000 left for the building, administrators, buses, books, etc, $120,000 if you use the bigger class.
"Give me $100,000 to educate 20 kids for a year and I’ll gladly quit my job as an attorney, rent the necessary facilities, and provide a much better education to them than the public schools do.
“As a homeowner who would under no circumstances allow any of my five children to attend any public school (which means I am giving up a $1/2 million government subsidy), I find the amounts the government spends on schools to be utterly outrageous.”