Some history of school budgets
Over the past week there's been talk of layoffs of dozens of teachers if the Democratic Council votes in favor of the budget that went to public hearing on Thursday. This reminded me of April 2004 when similar assertions were made. So I decided to do some research.
Most memorable to me was a headline in the MRJ that spoke to comments by the Superintendent. I can't find the article or the headline, but it indicated something about possible layoffs of dozens of teachers.
In the absence of that article and headline, I did find this piece from the Herald:
In the end, the schools saw a reduction of nine certified staff:
Obviously that had forced a reduction in services. But I still thought it was worth noting that the full projections did not become reality. And this also reminds me of another post in which I showed that the 05/06 BOE budget actually increased by:
3.28 certified staff and
10.0 non-certified staff
between when it was:
approved by the Board of Education in June 2005 and
implemented by the Administration in October 2005.
I realize that these prior budgets have no direct relation to our current situation. But since we learn history in school, I figure history is probably worth knowing.
Whatever budget is adopted, I expect it will reduce services on both the town and school side. But that's a reality I believe most people accept because of the times in which we find ourselves - everyone is cutting back to varying degrees.
Tim White
4 comments:
Thanks Tim. No teachers lost in the past and no teachers will be lost in this budget. When are people in this Town going to wake up? At the current rate our property taxes will go up over $1000/yr for an average home in the next few years. No one will move to Cheshire due to the high taxes. Only the ones that move her because of our GREAT school system. What a bunch of BS.
When property taxes increase housing prices decrease. At some point increasing taxes will result in Cheshire real estate prices looking more like those in Meriden and Waterbury. Maybe the school superintendent wants a new form of regionalization along with his ever increasing demands for scarce tax dollars?
I moved to Cheshire because it was a nice, quiet, safe town, also it was close to New Haven where I worked. People move to Cheshire for a host of reasons other than the school system. It's been noted that our school enrollment is steadily declining and is projected to continue declining - so apparently young families moving into Cheshire is also declining. Young families are moving out of CT where they can actually get something for their money and low taxes to boot. I read an article in the Hfd Courant that the loss of 20-30 yr olds is alarming. This trend will continue as long as our house prices and taxes continue to rise. Also, people who move to Cheshire only for the school system leave when their children are no longer in school.
Information such as this, though not necessarily difficult to obtain is one of those most valuable features of this website. Something that none of the local "newspapers" seem capable of providing.
If only you would stop with all the Ron Paul stuff, you might actually be able to expand your audience. There is a reason that no one listens to Ron Paul.
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