Edison School District Keeps Growing but Not the Board of Mythomania?!?

Just saw the piece in the Sentinel here and seriously, you gotta be kidding me. 'The Edison Board of Education's concerns around overcrowding and funding have been front and center at recent meetings.'

Duh!

First of all, this district has been in dire need to correct the overcrowding for a long-long time and this board has yet to put together a well thought-out, cohesive and practical plan for all the stakeholders to address the issues. All they do is piecemeal projects with ridiculously expensive capital projects and go around voter approval to fund them by using lease vs. purchase agreements. These lease vs. purchase agreements allow the board to incur debt for capital additions without voter approval.

Second, every time they want to go to the cash cow, aka..the taxpayer bottomless pit, to fund these overpriced things, they start of by complaining we don't get our fair share of funding from the state. That's a distraction and misdirection they hope you bite on. We've never gotten our fair share of state aid and most likely won't - and certainly not in time to fund their latest attempt to pick your pockets. So, blah..blah..blah to that bit of disingenuous rhetoric.

According to their last $234 million bloated 'Out-of-Control $pending pot of money they call a school budget, we the taxpayers, funded 90% of it. Think they care if the state gives them more money - they'll just get it from us like they always do.

Geez, the bids for the Woodbrook school expansion came in $3 million more than they expected. How can they possibly be off by that much?

And when it comes to these capital projects they often do without your approval, you should always take their numbers with a grain of salt. Take the James Monroe fiasco.

Forgetting for the moment that they didn't tell you about that extra $900k they had to pay because of the delay in opening, let's take a look at the cost they came up with to rebuild it - they came up with a total Cost of $28.1 to rebuild that school.

They then went ahead and got you to approve a bond for $18 million (Cost of $28.1m less $9.5 million in insurance proceeds). Turns out they got a settlement of $23.6 million and said they don't need the bond and dropped it. Now, you have to seriously ask yourself, if they could do it for $23.6 million, why did they say it would cost $28.1 million? Why the extra $5 million??

That's just one example, there are others but why bore you anymore. Moral of this story, question every dollar they want to $pend on capital projects and don't let them go behind your back to fund it.

So, before you start feeling sorry for the kids - make the adults over there on Mythomania Lane step up and do the right thing for the kids. And that starts with a board doing the job they're supposed to do and stop treating those who fund their lack of leadership and oversight with such disrespect.

Anyhoo, if there was ever a time when we need a new school board, it's now.

Update: Just saw this State Audit of School Aid - 2014 - 2016 here.

Your Edison 2016 Property Tax Increases

So you know who to thank for this year's property tax increases!

2016 Final/2017 Preliminary Tax Bills are Out - 'Swiper's' on the Loose in Downtown Edison

Well, just saw the above-mentioned tax bill. It comes with a Total Property Tax Rate 0f $5.276, which is Up 20.2-Cents or 4.0% over Last Year's $5.074.

Now, what's interesting about that $5.276 is that it was supposed to be $5.270 - and we were supposed to get a 1-Cent credit on our 4th Qtr. tax bill since the the 3rd Qtr. estimated tax bill was built on a rate of $5.280, which had a 1-Cent Overstatement of the Muni-tax rate.

So, now it looks like that 1-Cent credit is being reduced to 4/10ths of a Cent since the County Taxes are 6/10ths of a Cent Higher than originally factored into the 3rd Qtr. estimated tax bill.

If you live in that imaginary home assessed at $177,300 that 1-Cent would of brought you a credit of $17.73 but thanks to 'Swiper', you now only get $7.09.

If you don't live in that imaginary home, then take your home's assessed value divided by 100 and multiply it by .006 to get how much 'Swiper' Got From You!

Don't you just love how things work here in the 'DemBadLands' of Downtown Edison?

Here's the final 2016 property tax rates:

Anyhoo, let's give a big shout out to Freeloader-Still-at-Large Charlie 'I Abstain' Tomaro for always looking out for the People of Downtown Edison.

Edison BoE - Current Contract Salaries - $134,451,496 for 1,952 Heads

Well, just received the EBoE current contract salary file. It has staffing of 1,952 for $134,451,496. Here's some summaries of the data in the file, which is by person, location, title and contract salary.

Salary Ranges:

It shows those making over $100k represent 23.4% of the heads but earning 37.4% of the dollars. Likewise, those making under $100k represent 76.6% of the heads but earning 62.6% of the dollars.

Salary Range Graphic:

By Title;

It shows the amount by title broken down by the average, median, high and low salaries.

Here's the table put together from the data. It's set on Principals but you can sort the file any way you want depending on what you want to see:

Here's the same data in a pivot table:

Finally, here's the Top 50 sorted from the table:

These are pictures from the Excel file and if anyone wants the Excel tables with all the data, just drop me a note. You're welcome to it.

Anyhoo, it's a snapshot of where we are now.

Edison's 100 'Oligarchy' Blvd. v. 312 'Mythomania' Lane - who's winning the Voter Apathy Race for Your Tax Dollars here in Downtown Edison!?!

Be it the myth of Checks & Balances on the Muni-side of town or a School Board that does a great job Leading from Behind on the other - indifference works well for our local leaders.

But hey, what do I know? We live in a town that has some 55k plus Registered Voters and all it takes to be Mayor is some 8k votes and 2.5k votes for a seat on the School Board - and the two best candidates we could find to be anointed to higher office were Charlie 'I Abstain' Tomaro and Rob 'Mr. Temper-a-Ment' Karabinchak!?!

Anyhoo, you really can't blame them - we actually are getting the type of local government we deserve!