Back-to-School Bashing

Here are some of the latest school factoids you may have missed while reading the local news. The school board has approved a $1.5 million budget increase for the upcoming year. Sadly, Superintendent Healy neglects to mention how even a dime of that extra money will be spent or why last year’s $61.8 million budget wasn’t enough.

 Normally, you’d be able to review the district’s “User Friendly” budget to view the line item increases but a funny thing happened along the way. According to last year’s budget (and the superintendent’s budget presentation), the 2011-12 budget was $61.8 million. However, according to the 2012-13 budget, last year’s $61.8 million ballooned into $64.1 million.
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Now, What?

Aberdeener.com began nearly 5 years ago in the fall of 2007. The site’s purpose was to raise awareness of local issues and present ideas for improving the community.

Shortly after the site’s launch, I became convinced the core problem was leadership and targeted all of Aberdeen’s elected leadership. 4 years later, every one of Aberdeen’s elected representatives on the school board and town council resigned their positions.

During my short stint on the school board, we cut the prior year’s budget by $2.3 million and introduced several educational initiatives, including a renewed emphasis on writing skills, a revised special education program, investments in technology, and a push to reduce grade inflation.

In the nearly two years I’ve been gone, school spending has increased 6.2% ($3.7 million) and education is once again adrift.

As for the township, we’ve been blessed with competent leadership in the new town manager, Holly Reycraft, but the council itself is still mired in pay-to-play. Anchor Glass, Aberdeen Forge, Train Station, Pool Club, Senior Housing have all been torpedoed by the council and its gang of experts who seek to extort every penny they can get from the developers.

Which brings us back to the blog.

Now, what? Nobody has stepped forward to assume the blogger role. Nor has anyone done the gritty investigative work of requesting documents from the municipal bodies.

Once again, we’re being asked to trust our government without any ability to verify.

What is the municipal budget? Why have more school employees not been outsourced, like transportation, secretarial, and child study teams? How much money is being paid to big political donors like CME? Where are our children going after they complete high school?

As a school board member, I continued to submit OPRA requests and never allowed the administration to be the sole arbiter of the school agenda. After high school, where do our graduates go? What’s the correlation between class grades and state exams? How are we progressing compared to other districts? Why are expenditures outpacing inflation and population growth? Has teacher training been cost effective? How are the academies raising student performance?

Getting the raw data is relatively easy. I’d be willing to submit the OPRA requests via email and pay for the documents but someone needs to retrieve and fax them to me. Until then, the blog will focus upon small initiatives and hopefully someone will take the initiative to lead.  

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Aberdeen, the Township of Money Pit

Since the good people of Aberdeen have supported their monolithic democratic town council for over a decade, I have to assume to following will be welcome news.

Although the town budget hasn’t been posted yet, the township has announced good news; municipal property taxes will be going upabout 5% this year. That’s more than triple the rate increase from the school district. Once again, the township has successfully increased its share of the property tax pie.

More good news. The township continues to invest in senior housing with another $360,000 for CME to do more “environmental remediation” at the old South River Metals site. Don’t know if we’ll ever actually have senior housing but it won’t be for lack of spending money on CME. Perhaps it would be cheaper for the town to reincorporate as a wholly owned subsidiary of CME.

Too bad Aberdeen’s bond rating dropped. (Hat tip: AberdeenNJlife). Moody says the downgrade resulted from Aberdeen’s “weakened financial position following fund balance draws in each of the last seven years.” Makes you wonder if they’ve been reading the blog. Well, no problem. We can just raise more taxes.

On a final note, it’s nice to see the township recognize our old public defender, John Fiorino Jr; the council just voted to by his daddy’s property for $130,000.

Aberdeen. Such a nice town. If only it didn’t cost so darn much.

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Madness Run Amok

I know, like, and respect many of the school board members but I will no longer try to understand them. A year ago, I wrote, “the scary thing is the school board will likely allow [Healy] to take the lead.” I was correct but I never imagined it would get this bad.

Recently, the school board voted to strip the citizens of their right to vote on the school budget. They claimed to do this because the citizens were too stupid, ignorant, or partisan to simply rubberstamp the school board’s rubberstamp of the administration’s proposed budgets.

What were those proposed budgets that they couldn’t risk putting before the good people of Matawan-Aberdeen? In two years, during a recession and housing crisis, they’ve raised spending by 6.4%. All that extra money coming from the state could’ve gone to tax relief but tax relief will never be on the agenda. Taxes will keep going up forever.
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Vinnie’s World – A Proclamation

“I fart in your general direction” – John Cleese, Monty Python

As a monument to Aberdeen’s surrender of all rights to good government, the Town Council hereby bequeaths to the township, Vincent Vinci Park, in honor of that most scurrilous of councilmen, Councilman Vincent Vinci. (Hat tip: aberdeennjlife.blogspot.com/)

Councilman Vinci’s contempt for the citizenry is unsurpassed in Aberdeen’s history and a shining example of our Town Council’s aspirations. 

Among Councilman Vinci’s abundant contemptible acts, we recognize the following:

• Taking consulting fees to work on his magnificent reelection campaigns
• Purchasing two large plots of unrestricted public land adjacent to his home for the grand total of $1 each
• Convincing the county to purchase and demolish a perfectly good home and build a bypass road to alleviate automobile traffic on his dead end street
• Repeatedly parking in the handicapped parking spot in front of Town Hall
• Being one of only two council members to take a pay raise at the height of the Great Recession
• Voting to increase his fire commissioner salary by 36.5% during the Great Recession
• Installing by his residence the only street signs in the township to state, “Do Not Block the Intersection”
• Owning a severely under-taxed home property
• Facilitating Aberdeen’s unsurpassed record in Pay-to-Play

Councilman Vinci, we salute you.

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