Budget games - Mythomania Style-a-Mundo!

Just a reminder that it's budget time over there on Mythomania and it might be helpful to remember that highly touted, Best-est ever School Budget for 2012-13. You remember that one - where they went on and on about keeping the fiscal year tax levy flat to the prior year but never mentioned how much $pending was increased!

Well, just to refresh your mind - $pending in the 2012-13 school budget was $212.2 million, up $7.2 million over the prior year's $205.0 million. That budget came with a Tax Rate of $2.668 per hundred of assessed value, up 4.1-Cents over the prior year's $2.627. You can see my take on it here.

Now, how is it that other aid (meant for tax relief) can go up by 7.2 million - yet the tax levy stayed the same as it was in the prior year?

Simple, they took all that aid meant for taxpayer relief and used it to increase their $pending in the 2012-13 school budget. You know, thingies like hoarded aid that came in after the 2011-12 tax rate was struck, that additional $1.9 million we got in state aid, the excess free balance to mention a few. Rather than giving any of it back to us - they used it to increase their $pending! Wasn't that Nice!?!

Oh wait, gotta be fair - they did give us back $56,000 of the $7.2 million for tax relief.

Remember too - state aid in 2012-13 only increased by $1.9 million - yet they came up with $7.2 million in increased $pending.

Here, take a look at what they did:

Anyhoo, do yourself a favor and pay attention to their offering for the 2013-14 school budget - soon to be coming to your neighborhood. Things aren't always as informative and transparent as they are presented to be over there on Mythomania Lane.