>I hate taxes as much as anyone. But, your logic is absurd. It sounds like what you are suggesting is that we should stop spending what is necessary to maintain our schools and allow our school system to deteriorate. Then young families won’t move here and the existing families can stay here after their kids move away, without fear of tax increases to pay for other people’s kids’ education, the way previous families did for their children. Is that about right?
So, what you want is for Ridgewood to gradually become a town with a run down school system full of elderly people with no kids, who pay low taxes. Sounds like you should move to Saddle River.
Besides, the whole reason that people move to Ridgewood is because it is such a family town. I never heard anyone say “let’s raise our family in Ridgewood…its a great retirement community.”
I have a little dose of reality for you. Families moving to town is not what forces the BOE to issue bonds, resulting in tax increases. There are two primary reasons for the need for bond issuance.
1) The BOE is not allowed to set aside funds for long-term planned maintenance or construction. Every dime in the school budget must be spend in that fiscal year. Therefore, when large unexpected expenses impact the budget, like $millions for a new roof, or large construction projects must be undertaken, like GW School, the only way to fund them is through a special bond issuance.
2) The reason the school budget is so tight and there is no wiggle room for unexpected expenses or large projects, is that 85% of the entire budget goes to teachers’ comp and benefits. The negotiated contract that the BOE has to deal with sucks all the money out of our $90mm budget. There is nothing left for the operation and maintenance of the school system. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should pay teachers well. But, they do not need to be over paid, given guranteed employment and automatic raises. Oh, and by the way, even though we’ve been in a deflationary environment for the past 18-24 months, you and I made less money last year and our friends got laid off, the teachers got their automatic maximum slaray increase in 2008 and they will get it again this year.