Rachel Selig, Longfield Drive
Perhaps your mother is similar to mine. My mother, a proud educator for more than twenty years, was fond of remarking, “And if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too?”
Let’s be honest about the taxes. As we all know, school funding relies on taxes. I would be delighted to support more businesses in Hillsborough that are consistent with a strategic growth plan but we work with what we have right now. Therefore, the taxes come from families like myself.
Did you know that Hillsborough serves over 7,000 students but, in schools of similar size in all of New Jersey, has the 20th lowest cost per student?
A buzzword I’m hearing everywhere is “stimulus.” As I learned at a recent board meeting, no school districts have received any information about how the money must be spent, what it’s tied to, or when it will be available. As much as I would love a magic cure for my family’s share of taxes, this isn’t it.
Some have asked me why our Board of Education didn’t use last year’s $4 million increase in state aid to lower taxes. Our community had to use it for essential, mostly one-time expenses to create the productive learning environments our community requires. The bulk of the money went towards replacing Sunnymead’s terribly leaky roof, necessary window replacements at Woods Road, restrooms at three schools: Woodfern, the middle school, and the high school, essential parking lot improvements, and making a forward-thinking decision to save money in the future by hiring an on-staff district behaviorist instead of repeatedly paying high rates to outsource this.
Increasing an average family’s share of school taxes by just $37 is an idea that scares some away.
But, our community is not an “idea.” Our community and our future leaders are children, like mine, who depend upon us to make the right decision based on facts, not scare tactics.
The fact of the matter is that, just as we are all seeing with our household expenses, prices increase. Unfortunately, some of the tax base our district thought would be here this year simply isn’t. Businesses closed, vacant property wasn’t sold, and yes, that dreaded “f” word we have had some foreclosures.
When I think of the work I did with my mother’s former school on the scholarship set up in her memory, I am reminded of the incredible responsibility we have to do the right thing. We teach our children to do what is right, even if it seems others are making a different decision. Even more important than making mom proud, let’s make our children proud of us.
Think. Step away from that cliff and vote yes for our budget.
