This letter is in response to a letter published on April 29, 2010, titled “Millstone Has Done a Great Injustice to its Schoolchildren.”
While some residents may be fortunate enough not to have been affected, many people in our community, our state, and in our country have suffered from the fallout of the global financial crisis and ensuing recession. As a result, jobs and homes have been lost, others have suffered salary freezes or pay cuts, investments have declined in value, and many residents who own businesses have been forced to cut back in painful ways. People are suffering, and in this environment we must all recognize that resources are finite and difficult decisions must be made.
State aid to our school district has been reduced as our state government deals with a drastic decline in tax revenues. Our Board of Education made difficult cuts but presented a budget to voters that still would have relied on an increase in the local tax levy. Over time, residents have been asked again and again to pay more in property taxes to fund the school district. In previous years when voters rejected budget proposals, defeated budget procedures still resulted in higher property tax bills. Even in periods of prosperity, I resoundingly reject the notion that in order to provide children with a thorough and efficient education, residents must continually be burdened with tax increases that significantly exceed the rate of inflation. The latest request adds insult to injury and represents how disconnected our education system is from reality while many families in our community are being forced to face the most difficult of decisions.
The rejection of a tax increase that many residents simply cannot afford is not an injustice to children. It is the rejection of a deeply rooted systemic injustice. While I am proud of our outstanding education system, its outcomes do not justify its high and escalating costs. These costs have begun to reach a threshold where residents can no longer afford our education system in its current form. We simply cannot continue to allow costs to increase at a rate that exceeds both inflation and income growth. Nor can we afford to send our children to schools that fail to adequately prepare them for success in a hypercompetitive global economy.
No one has questioned the need to provide educational excellence for Millstone Township’s young minds, but some of us are simply unable to write a blank check. We need to find a way to educate our children by attracting and retaining the best teachers and staff available without asking taxpayers to foot the bill for pay increases that exceed the growth of their own incomes. We need to put an end to fiscally unsustainable offerings of fringe benefits and pensions that are far more generous than those provided by the private sector. We should not pollute a legitimate public policy debate or question the motives of those who voted against a preserving an unsustainable status quo. No voters have rejected a bill many can no longer afford to pay. Their motives are sincere. Rather than neglecting the educational needs of our children, no voters are offering them a lesson in responsibility. The school district must figure out how to provide a critical public service while living within the means of its tax base.
The rejected budget now falls before the Township Committee, a body chosen to make difficult decisions on our behalf. If, as has been suggested, the members of the committee are “tired” of performing their fiduciary duties as elected officials, they are unfit for public office and should resign immediately.
Christopher Buckingham
Millstone