Letters to The Editor

Dear Sir or Madam;

I recently saw on the same date, May 7th, two articles in the School District News section of your website that I found oddly conflicting. The confusion was not due to your reporting but from the situations reported on. The first was an article about the district reporting that they were able to make significant cuts and savings in their budget to the tune of approximately $800k. This is something that I applaud as it is us, the tax payers and property owners, that are on the hook for this spending. The warm feeling quickly dissipated as I read the next article in which the district indicated their intent to quickly approve spending just shy of $500k on new artificial turf for the football stadium. This seems a bit at odds with trying to reduce the enormous deficit they state they are trying to resolve. The article reads that they are concerned with safety issues that might arise from the existing turf being past its expected lifespan. My question to the district is: “What about the concern the tax payers have with your inability to balance your budget without digging deeper into our pockets?” There are only two sides to every budget; income and spending. How about, for the sake of the people you serve, you decide to truly freeze the income side and take a hard look at the spending. If your bi-laws stayed that any deficit came out of the money that was going to be paid as a raise for the employees they’d have a solution to fix it. As the saying goes, ‘It’s easy to decide where to spend someone else’s money.’

Sincerely yours,

Rob Harley

Mill Hall