Sunday, June 20, 2004
This bill SUCKS! Write to your NJ State Representatives TODAY!!!
NJ Assembly A99 / Senate S1701 will place a hard cap on scholl budget increases of 2.5% per year. This sounds, on its face, a reasonable idea ... but in reality it will deal a death blow to education in NJ. New Jersey, despite its antediluvian methods of school-funding, has one of the best education systems in the US. A99/S1701 aims to hobble the system even further than it is now.
Salary increases ALONE will drive up the budget by about 2.5%. When you consider the 40% increase in energy costs this year (affecting both heating and transportation), the 40% increase in health insurance these past 2 years, ever increasing federal mandates like "No Child Left Behind" and Special Education, the only certain result of this legislation will be the slow dismemberment and gutting of our schools.
The property tax is onerous and only getting worse, but this bill could be considered a solution to the problem only by people who see suicide as a viable solution to a painful hangnail.
Let your state representatives and the leadership in Trenton know that this is simply unacceptable - that they need to bite the bullet, do some real tax reform, and stop using our kids and our communities as pawns in their game to stay in office, sucking at the taxpayer teat.
The easiest way to contact all the players at once is at the website of the New Jersey School Boards Association.
Don't wait, the bills come up for a vote tomorrow, June 21! Send those emails and faxes RIGHT NOW!!!
NJ Assembly A99 / Senate S1701 will place a hard cap on scholl budget increases of 2.5% per year. This sounds, on its face, a reasonable idea ... but in reality it will deal a death blow to education in NJ. New Jersey, despite its antediluvian methods of school-funding, has one of the best education systems in the US. A99/S1701 aims to hobble the system even further than it is now.
Salary increases ALONE will drive up the budget by about 2.5%. When you consider the 40% increase in energy costs this year (affecting both heating and transportation), the 40% increase in health insurance these past 2 years, ever increasing federal mandates like "No Child Left Behind" and Special Education, the only certain result of this legislation will be the slow dismemberment and gutting of our schools.
The property tax is onerous and only getting worse, but this bill could be considered a solution to the problem only by people who see suicide as a viable solution to a painful hangnail.
Let your state representatives and the leadership in Trenton know that this is simply unacceptable - that they need to bite the bullet, do some real tax reform, and stop using our kids and our communities as pawns in their game to stay in office, sucking at the taxpayer teat.
The easiest way to contact all the players at once is at the website of the New Jersey School Boards Association.
Don't wait, the bills come up for a vote tomorrow, June 21! Send those emails and faxes RIGHT NOW!!!
