Found Money

After successfully passing its first tax increase in a decade, the Matawan-Aberdeen School District was delighted to learn it was the proud recipient of an additional $584,217 in state aid.

The district’s senior administrators quickly huddled to determine how to best spend the money. After all, the thinking goes, why should the money go to waste as tax relief during a labor and housing crisis when the school district could put it to good use.

And what was their master plan? Buying books. Lots and lots of books. Why? Because studies show that the mere presence of books in a room magically improves literacy rates among youngsters.

How does that work? I’m glad you asked. You see, according to this theory, kids are tired of watching TV, playing video games, chatting online or texting friends, and surfing the web. No, what children really want to do is curl up in bed with a good read. But they can’t because the school library doesn’t have any good books and Mommy and Daddy won’t take them to the public library. So, against their better judgment, kids have no alternative to social networking and mind numbing entertainment.

According to this theory, given the choice between Grand Theft Auto and Lord of the Flies, children will naturally be drawn to the latter.
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Should I Yes or Should I No

On Tuesday, we’ll be voting whether to approve a 2% tax levy increase for the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District, the lowest proposed increase among the non-Abbott K-12 school districts in Monmouth County. (The proposed budget is $2.3 million below last year’s and $2.9 million below the budget for 2008-09.) Supporters and opponents of the tax increase both have valid arguments. However, on balance, I believe it is in our community’s best interest to support the budget.

If the budget fails, the governing bodies of Matawan and Aberdeen will likely recommend the tax increase be cut from 2% to 1%. No more personnel or program cuts will be necessary since the district will begin receiving 1.5% salary contributions towards health benefits from all employees represented by the teachers union, amounting to about $500,000. (All other employees already contribute.)

If the budget passes, that same money would go towards restoring programs and personnel; I would argue for restoring summer school, the librarians for the middle and high schools, and a child study team.

The arguments against the tax increase are straightforward:

Our taxes are already too high
Among Monmouth County’s 53 municipalities, Matawan has the 2nd highest property taxes and Aberdeen has the 5th highest.

We don’t raise taxes during a recession
All of us personally know people who lost their jobs and probably know people who either lost their homes or are at risk of doing so. The community cannot afford another tax increase on top of all the other increases from sewer fees to water prices to municipal taxes to county taxes to medical devices to loss of the homestead rebate to . . . Well, you get the picture.

The school district needs to cut more fat
We’ve got teachers who can’t teach and administrators who can’t administer. Why aren’t we getting rid of these people?

We need to send the teachers union a message
Every penny of the proposed tax increase is going towards staff salary increases. The new 1.5% salary contribution to healthcare only covers one-third of this year’s $1.5 million increase for health benefits (and less than 10% of the total cost for the union’s Cadillac plan). Meanwhile, the teachers union has refused to offer any meaningful concessions that would save jobs and programs or, at the very least, demonstrate a shared sacrifice during a deep recession. The budget vote is the community’s only opportunity to demonstrate its anger towards union intransigence.

Defeating the budget will reduce future taxes
The state imposes CAPs that set strict limits on what percentage the district can increase taxes from year to year. Defeating the budget sets a lower baseline, which likely translates into lower annual taxes moving forward.

I agree with all of the above but I ask you to do the following:

Place all these arguments on one end of a scale and librarians on the other end. Put another way, is our community willing to increase school taxes by 1% to have librarians in all our schools. Libraries are a completely different learning experience from the internet and I fear that experience will be lost without school librarians. My vote is for the librarians. >>> Read more!

The Matawan-Aberdeen Library's Community Meeting

This Thursday, October 2nd, at 7PM, the Matawan-Aberdeen library is hosting a community meeting to brainstorm on the library’s future. Since the Great Library of Alexandria over 2,000 years ago until the advent of the internet, the library’s mission has remained the same – to be an archive of knowledge. As all new information goes digital, and the internet begins to supplant the library, a new mission for our library is long overdue.

Though I will be unable to attend the meeting, I hope its participants will discuss two aspects – First, a new mission statement. What is the library’s purpose? What do people want it to do? How do we envision the library ten years from now?

The second item is what role, if any, will the library have in Main Street’s hoped for rejuvenation?

My personal opinion is that the library should facilitate intellectual stimulation by providing the needed resources for individuals to pursue, manage, or organize groups of diverse interests. Space, budgets, and other constraints should only be tackled after first deciding what we’d like to achieve.

The library was a special part of my education. Roaming the stacks and interacting with others is something the internet cannot provide. I hope the library finds a new way to put its excellent resources to their best uses. >>> Read more!