Vigilance is Required
Oct 7th, 2009 by Randy Toman
CC-BASD “Publius II” has something to say; hopefully you citizens of Bethlehem Pa. will listen and get involved with Concerned Citizens of Bethlehem Area School District.
Contact CC-BASD at; thenarrowway@juno.com
Randy Toman
Enjoy knowing someone is watching them;
Over the last several months, the Concerned Citizens of Bethlehem Area School District (CC-BASD) looked very closely at the financial operations and financial strategy of the school district. The picture was not pretty. Numerous short comings in basic accounting implementation and execution of a flawed tax and spend fiscal policy were identified. The CC-BASD recommended solutions to the observed problems. There was plenty of blame to be shared amongst the administration, the school board, and a distracted public.
Yet, recently, the school board appears to have started to make progress in bringing reason and common sense back to the budget process. So, it was especially disappointing to see a flawed set of five year budget projections produced by the district in September.
The following email was sent to the school board, by the CC-BASD, to object to the flawed projections. This serves notice that the citizenry has been awakened and will stay vigilant.
School Board Directors,
I wanted to restate and reinforce our group’s comments that we presented at the September 21st, 2009 Regular Board Meeting, about the district’s recent five year budget projections. The direction implied in the five year projection analysis presented at a recent Finance Committee Meeting is unacceptable to the tax payer and potentially detrimental to the long term viability and attractiveness of the community. Tax increases in excess of 27% over the next five years should not even be a consideration.
Again, we acknowledge that these five year projections are non-binding and are just a starting point for planning purposes. In addition, we acknowledge that recent actions by the school board have started to move the district in the right direction. Yet, we are far from being out of the woods.
Projected school property tax increases of over 27% in the next five years strikes fear in the minds of many retired and fixed income property owners. No tax should have the power to leave you homeless. These projections also initiate frustration in young families who are looking to purchase their first home. The taxpayers have already been slapped with a 5.1 % tax increase during a recession. Continuous tax increases are not sustainable for all members of the community. The taxpayer cannot continue to shoulder this extreme financial burden.
The tax and spend budget mind set must be abandoned. A fiscally conservative trend must be embraced over the next five years. The development of a budget scenario process that starts with the assumption of no tax increases and holding the line on the major expense line items is what is needed. As we have highlighted, three expense line items represent over 66% of the total budget. These three items all have significant five year projected increases built into the recent analysis: Other Salaries 14.5%; Teacher Salaries 19.0%; and Employee Benefits 71.4%. These extraordinary increases are unsatisfactory and should not even be considered. The impact of the pension (PSERS) bubble on the horizon will be difficult enough to handle. We have to ensure prudent and thrifty treatment of all other expense line items.
Thank you for your time and dedication to the school district.
As Thomas Jefferson said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” The CC-BASD is fully prepared to pay that price to bring limited government and individual liberty back to the mainstream of our country.
Publius II
CC-BASD