Charles Cummins REPORT CARD ON EDUCATION Critics can express concerns by voting on school budget Charles Cummins, Ed.D., is a retired school administrator. Send questions to him at: cacummins818@gmail.com.
School budgets will be up for vote in the very near future. It is always popular to complain about budget increases and wonder why schools can’t be run more efficiently. Let’s consider a few things. Nearly everything has increased in price since this time last year. You don’t have to be an accountant or have any special knowledge of budgets to understand that schools are paying more for goods and services. RISING COSTS It costs more every day for us to fill up the gas tank on the family car. And we all saw our home heating bills increase this past winter. Can you project similar increases to your school district’s operating expenses? You know what those increases did to your family budget. Imagine how much more it cost the district to keep all those school buses running over what they budgeted. Imagine the cost of keeping those acres of rooms and hallways heated for the comfort of your kids. Imagine the cost of keeping lights, computers and other electronic equipment operating. You could turn down the heat in your house while you were at work and the kids were at school. You could make sure that lights and other equipment not in use were turned off while you were away. Schools don’t have that luxury. Well, what about those teachers’ salaries? Don’t they account for a big chunk of the budget? Experience indicates that personnel salaries — teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, grounds keepers, bus drivers, security personnel, secretaries, and any other school employees you can think of — account for about 80 percent of a school district’s budget. But that was built into the budget last year and only rose this year by whatever amount was negotiated for raises. School districts reduce staff when they can; few can afford to have people employed for a redundant or unnecessary position. If you know of someone employed in such a position, you should bring it to the attention of your local school board. I am sure they would be happy to investigate. The same advice applies to any other waste. Are lights on late at night when there are no students present? You can ask why. Does the central cafeteria seem to throw out more unused food than necessary? You have the right to ask if better planning won’t eliminate some of the excess. IDLING BUSES Let me discuss one area I know concerns some people: those school buses sitting outside the school each afternoon with their motors running in winter. The reason they do it is to have buses warm for students’ trips home. One transportation supervisor I talked with said school buses are forbidden by law from idling outside schools for more than five minutes, 10 tops. Accordingly, school districts now try to time their bus runs so that the drivers show up at school only minutes before the dismissal bell and the buses are already warm. Nevertheless, a passer-by may only notice the long line of buses idling outside the school. If this or any other aspect of the way the schools operate concerns you, ask about it. You may find that there is a simple explanation. If you don’t like the answer, you should plan to get involved in next year’s budget planning and see if changes can be brought about. School boards usually have an avenue for citizen input at budget planning time. Voting against a proposed budget will register your protest. It won’t accomplish much else — unless enough people share your feelings and succeed in voting the budget down. But voting down the local school budget does not mean that school will not open in the fall. State mandated contingency budgets allow schools to maintain essential services and meet payrolls. Some programs and activities, however, may be eliminated in a contingency budget, often to the detriment of students. Voting down the budget may save you a little on your taxes, but it may cost students a lot in the loss of certain programs. Keep in mind that the local school budget is one of the few, maybe the only, taxable area of government over which you have a say. All other taxes are levied by a governing body of elected representatives: the state, the county and the town or village, to name three of the obvious. You have the right to know what you are getting when you vote on a school budget. The school board is obligated to give you answers to any questions you have about the budget, how it was determined and why certain expenses are included or cannot be excluded. Vote intelligently, but be sure to vote on your local school budget. It is important.
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