Well, just saw this posted on the School District's website. It's the Preliminary School Budget they sent down for County approval.
You didn't get to see it before they approved it and sent it on its way but don't feel bad - most likely, most of the School Board members didn't see it either.
Be that as it may, given all the reasons I stated in earlier posts before - it's a joke and the numbers prove it. When you're due a Big School Tax Reduction and You don't get it, like in this basically flat tax rate school budget, You really have to call out the games they're playing.
If you look at the first page, they're saying they already had the 'Public Meeting" on the Proposed Budget on March 18, 2021.
You remember that meeting where they had a meeting but they didn't have the budget you could see and review. They're calling that the "Public Meeting on the Proposed Budget.
Unlucky, You had your chance to have a say - too bad you didn't have anything to look at to have a say.
Another Big Joke on You. You already had your chance to comment.
And don't kid yourself, it really doesn't matter - they only care about the County Super approval, your approval doesn't matter. Once they get that approval, they will just call a meeting and adopt it. They have until sometime in early May to adopt it.
So, just for heck of it, I will spend some time going through this School Budget and point out why it's as Ridiculous as the School Board members who went along with this fiasco and the serious 'dis' to the People of Edison they're supposed to represent.
From the look of this, it will be easy and probably won't take that long. Clearly, long before they they adopt it on 'TBA,' whatever date that is.
Just some things you should know before then. The numbers they use to compare the 2021-22 numbers in this budget to is the 2020-21 numbers. But if you look, you'll see that the numbers they use for 2020-21 to compare to the 2021-22 numbers in this school budget are different than the 2020-21 numbers in last years Approved Budget for 2020-21. Go look, you'll see it.
Now, I know why they do this and there's nothing wrong with it EXCEPT you don't know because they never disclose it to you in this school budget. And because they don't disclose it to You, the infamous Staffing Shell-Game stays alive and well and they continue to add Staffing to the payroll that were never budgeted.
And what's the Staffing Shell-Game (you can go back to prior posts and see what it is and how it works and also see the effect over the years that I paid attention to it) and how does it take your money without you ever knowing it?
Let's see it at work in this school budget - in this school budget, if you look at the General Summary - Position on page 45, you'll see that they're budgeting for 23 new additions to staff. Well, that's nice but look at what's going on here.
Look at the Teachers line - they're saying they want to take the headcount from last year's 1,266 heads to 1,273 heads. That's an increase of only 7 heads. Okay not that big of an increase.
But now look at the 2020-21 number of 1,266 and compare it to last year's Approved budget line item for Teachers and you'll see it's 1,240.
Now, you say What?!?
So, here's what's happening - they already added 26 teachers that weren't budgeted (1,266-1,240) to the payroll during the year and never told you or disclosed it in this School Budget for 2021-22. That's a total of 33 now if you add the 7 they're showing.
Now, if you knew they already added 26 Teachers to the payroll that weren't budgeted, wouldn't you question why they want 7 more?
I would - but you don't get that chance since they don't disclose it to you. And since they don't disclose it to you, you don't get to ask where the money came from either to hire the additional non-budgeted staff.
Now, apply the same to every line in their staffing schedule and you'll see it can and has amounted to Big money they $pent and never told you about and was never budgeted over the years.
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