Happy with the latest budget?

I’m still trying to find out details, but at least education doesn’t appear to be suffering as much as I feared.

Bye, Theresa! Taxpayer prez says she’s moving

“I myself am not able to afford to live in this town,” [Theresa] McGrath said. She said her agenda was to cut taxes. “I don’t want to move. I’m going to have to move,” she said.

Maybe I’m crazy, but if West Hartford Taxpayer co-prez Theresa McGrath is moving, why is she setting our community’s agenda? If she’s “going to have to move” then why is she given any attention at all? I can barely afford to stay, but I’m staying. She isn’t, apparently, so why do we care what she says?

Now the council needs to stand strong

The town council plans to hold a public comment hearing on how to revise the budget starting at 7:30 p.m.  The council itself will vote on Wednesday night.

“Residents are welcome to come and offer their views,” Mayor Scott Slifka told the Courant. “We want to make sure people know about it and that it will be televised.”

So what will happen? What should we tell the council? What should the council do?

My own suggestion is simple: don’t cut more from education.

Budget “adjustments” promise pain

The town manager laid out for the council what it will take to reach different tax hike percentages. Here’s a PDF of the information that the council got.

I imagine that once the council picks how much it wants to cut, the town manager and school superintendent will lay out what specific cuts can be made to reach the target. That’s the point where we’ll see the blood and hear the screams. It won’t be pretty.

For those who can’t bear to see the details, to cut the increase for most homeowners from 6.6 percent — the level of the adopted budget that voters gunned down — to 4.5 percent this year would require slashing $3.4 million from the existing spending plan. To get to a 3 percent tax hike means wiping out $5.8 million from the budget. A tax freeze would take $10.6 million.

The numbers are just plain scary.

Slashing services the only option

The choice that our town leaders face is clear: they can either slash education more deeply or they can dump long-established services that town residents value.

Today’s story in The Hartford Courant devotes too much space to debunking the misleading numbers used by the West Hartford Taxpayers Association — old news, guys! — and not enough to what’s in store next.

But we do learn from the story that “the council will have to look to eliminate or reduce things that are in the budget, such as town services. ‘This is not something you can address adequately by trimming,’ [Mayor Scott] Slifka said. ‘We’re looking at wholesale service reductions.’
“Officials said they are considering eliminating the town’s vacuum-truck leaf pick-up service and instead requesting that residents place bagged leaves at the curb for pickup.
“Officials expect to have suggested reductions by the end of the week, and the council expects to adopt a new budget at its next meeting on June 26.”

I’m fine with dropping the vacuum trucks. They make a heckuva racket anyway.

What else can we do to save money on the municipal side of the budget? The schools can’t take more cuts.

Ouch. What’s next?

While I know there were many people who voted against the budget because they wanted more money for education, there’s no sense arguing that a majority of those who voted are not looking for more cuts. Obviously, given the margin, there’s no other way to analyze what happened.

But I still believe a large majority in this town opposes more education cuts. That they didn’t vote is a testament to the price of inattentiveness. And now their kids will pay the price.

Still, I’d like to see the town council focus its attention in areas other than education. Replace fewer curbs, pave fewer streets, postpone sensible maintenance in the hope that next year will be better. Maybe if Joe Visconti hit a pothole or two he might see the need for the town to spend some money on municipal services.

Anyway, what’s done is done. Now we need to pressure the town council not to swing its ax at the schools again. Been there, done that. Focus on something else, guys and gals.

Yes or no? The referendum finale

For me, it’s yes.

But let’s see how it goes Tuesday. Reports from the polls are welcome.

Tax revolt or just revolting? A yes vote is key.

If you want kids to sit in more crowded classrooms, vote no.

If you want to gut our gifted and talented program, vote no.

If you want to see kindergarten hours cut in half, vote no.

If you want to see services slashed and programs pared, vote no.

But if you want to see the traditional commitment to good schools continued, vote yes. And get your friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers and everyone you run across to turn out at the polls Tuesday and vote yes along with you.

Resident pleads for ‘Yes’ vote

This email & an addendum came in to me today. They seem worth sharing: 

I doubt there is anyone left who is unaware of this, but we are going
to referendum on Tuesday to support or send back the town budget.
Whatever your opinion, you should make it to the polls, so that we
really know what the majority of WH wants.  If you listen to the West
Hartford Tax Payer’s Association, then we are all unhappy with the
budget and are demanding more cuts.  They got the signatures to force
the referendum.  However, after speaking to some people who DID sign
the petitions, they were not necessarily fully aware of the situation.
I also don’t know how many of them realized that the highest officers
of the WHTA are home-schooling and/or sending their kids to private
schools.  It would seem to me that the stakes are not as high for them
in terms of cut-backs in education.

I am not afraid to stand up and tell you I am voting YES to support the
budget.  Like many of you, I am unhappy with the current state of the
cuts made by the BOE, but a NO vote will NOT get those back – it will
only force more cuts.  If you live in WH for the quality of the West
Hartford Public Schools and the other municipal services that we are
offered, then you should join me in voting YES.

I am, like many, confused by the article in Friday’s Courant about the
“lies” and both sides are now calling the others liars.  I can
understand that we need to fight more for our share of ECS funds.
Perhaps there could be some changes made that don’t effect the
programs.  But stuck in the middle of it all is our children, and if we
don’t support the budget now, that is where the cuts will be made – to
our classrooms and to our kids.  If you want to see a restructuring
that will change things in the coming years, then I urge you to get
involved earlier in the process next year.  The schools start preparing
the budget in the fall and by March the administration is presenting it
to the BOE.

When we got the letter from Jim Francis explaining the coming
year’s taxes, we realized it will not be nearly as bad as we expected.
Yes it’s going up, but not dramatically.  I believe them when they say
that as revaluation is phased in, the mill rate will go down.  Maybe it
will never reach the 29 mill rate the mayor has indicated, but I’d like
to believe it will indeed go down, and will balance off the increases
proportionately.  If we continue to make cuts to our services, we may
have lower taxes but what will happen to our property values?

Yes – I am a WHPS teacher, but I’m also a graduate, as was my dad, and
we intend our children to be, as well.  I can tell you from the inside
that many decisions are on hold until this budget is solidified.  New
teachers (like my daughter’s teacher who was a long-term sub this year
and has been offered a position for next year) are not able to sign
contracts until they find out if there are going to be shifts due to
classroom sizes being increased, or Quest being cut, or Kindergarten
going to 1/2 day.  In all cases, tenured teachers will bump out the
newer ones.  That means grade level changes, school changes, and new
curriculums to be learned – which is not necessarily awful but it does
effect our kids on a daily basis.  As any teacher can tell you, the
first year in a new position is a learning year.

If you are interested, there is a West Hartford blog in which you can
see, and participate, in discussions about our town.  It’s being
managed by a WH dad and some of our town officials are even adding to
the discourse.  Unfortunately, some people have resorted to
name-calling and are a bit overly dramatic, but if you skim through
some of those and find the good stuff, you can learn a lot about what
is going on:   https://whdad.wordpress.com/

As stated by Kiernan Majerus-Collins, a 6th grade Quest student, at the
May 29th public hearing, “People don’t move to West Hartford for the
tax breaks, they move to West Hartford for the education.”   (Watch for
Kiernan in future political races 15-20 years from now!)

Feel free to pass this message along, (or shorten it if you wish… but
please don’t misquote me.)  I am hopeful that there won’t be any
ramifications to me – as I’ve seen some not-so-nice stuff on that
blog… I’m just another concerned tax-payer and mom who wants to urge
you to vote on Tuesday, and hope that you vote YES.

Hello again…
I do apologize for bothering you again, but I have to set one thing
straight.  I was just looking at the ad taken out by the WHTA on the
front of the Trade Winds today.  I don’t know about the rest of the
numbers, but I can tell you with certainty that WH teachers do not have
$3.00 co-payments on healthcare.  I’ve been here for 5 years and
they’ve never been that low.  The below excerpt is on the WH Blog, from
a memo written by Jim Francis to the Town Council, and has been there
since June 9th – so I suppose they would have already submitted their
ad.  The memo was submitted to the blog by Chuck Coursey.  The memo
itself is dated June 5th.
https://whdad.wordpress.com/2007/06/09/vote-yes-on-the-budget/

       • The Taxpayers say the average co-payments are $3.00. I do not know
where this comes from but the co-pays for teachers,     administrators,
professionals, and nurses are: office visit -$20; emergency room – $75;
Inpatient hospital – $75; Prescription drug – $5 for    generic, $20 for
brand formulary, and $35 for brand non-formulary.

I’m not calling anyone a liar – but they should really get their facts
straight before they take out ads on the front of a paper.  I wouldn’t
let my students put that kind of misinformation in a school research
project, and they’d have to cite their sources, to boot.

Vote yes on the budget

Look, I’m disgusted with the cuts in education that have already been made, as are many others. But at this point, what’s done is done. Maybe next year we can push for more.

This year, though, we have to choose whether to support a flawed budget or vote it down. If it gets knocked down, it will be widely interpreted — wrongly, I think — that taxpayers want more sliced away from already lean spending plan. So there’s no choice except to back the budget and make sure that officials don’t pare it further.

It’s important to say  yes to the budget because at this point it’s the only way we have to say yes to education, to say yes to our schools, to say yes to the service and programs that make our town such an attractive place, and to say yes to the kids who are our future.

A no vote puts fear above hope and tells everyone that West Hartford may be ready to cut education in order to cut taxes for years to come. That would undermine our home values, scare off talented families who might move here and put us on the road to ruin.

There’s no option except to vote yes.