The Middletown Township Committee lead by Mayor Scharfenberger, seems to have no clue on how to address the defeated school budget after two meetings with members of the Board of Education. Rumor has it that the Township Committee is leaning towards the recommendation that an additional $1M be cut from it.
After stating at last Monday nights workshop meeting that they have no intention on holding public hearings on the matter, which runs contrary to what Middletown School Superintendent Karen Bilbao stated, there now appears on the Township website a link that is asking members of the public for comments on how they should handle the school budget.
That's pretty rich after all the blustering Scharfenberger has been doing on the subject.
After all, they can't figure out what to do about the town budget, let alone the school budget but at least the school budget is for the coming year, the Township budget year is almost half over with and we still have no budget.
Maybe Scharfenberger and crew should post a link to the website asking residents for suggestions on the township budget next.
I encourage you all to submit your comments to let them know what to do about our children's educational dollars. You can find the form at:
http://www.middletownnj.org/schoolbudget/
4 comments:
If the town council thought there was scrutiny of the budget before, the sh*tstorm just arrived.
As a parent with three children in elementary school in Middletown, before the township cuts teachers or school supplies, do the following:
1. Cut administrative positions. Particularly recently hired asst. superintendent. Savings $150,000(benefits and salary).
2. Eliminate several principal positions at elementary school level, having remaining principals responsible for two schools.
3. Eliminate one elementary school (River Plaza) and bus children evenly split amongst other elementary(Lincroft, Fairview, and Nut Swamp). Reduce teaching staff accordingly. Larger class sizes of 25-30 at remaining schools, while unfortunate would be tolerable, given the poor condition of River Plaza school, a school that is crumbling on the outside.
I want and support a strong public education system for my children, and as a republican, I am frustrated with the governor's draconian budget cuts and disgusted with his nonsensical political posturing. As an worker in private industry, if need be, I will relocate my family to a community which values public education and a state which is not playing political games with my children's education.
Anonymous,
Your points and concerns are valid and should be considered but I don't think you 2nd point will fly.
As far as I know the elementary schools do not have vice principles(I know my son's school doesn't) so to expect elementary school principles to cover 2 schools each would be an over reach of expectations.
The only blame should be on the UNION. They are the problem. Too many administrators yes, but they are in bed with the Union leaders so they will never go - Christie did not lay off ONE teacher! The superintendents, Union leaders & school boards did. Not one teacher needed to be laid off if they did their cuts properly and waste was eliminated
Sorry Anonymous but I have to disagree.
When you have almost $11M taken away from the BoE layoffs were inevitable and there for Christie did layoff teachers with his funding cuts.
If the union had accepted a pay freeze layoffs were still going to happen. There was no way to make up that kind of cut without layoffs even if you eliminated every administrator on the payroll!
Post a Comment