| Author | Message | ||
     jfburch Citizen Username: Jfburch Post Number: 1214 Registered: 6-2001 |
As John points out, taxes are only one factor with respect to property values and NJ Monthly rankings are only one "objective" measure of school quality. Focusing only on those doesn't illuminate the situation much. Property values depend ultimately on demand. Yes, higher property taxes affect that demand relative to a simliar property somewhere else. So do other things--like perceptions of school quality, quaintness, diversity, commute, the nature of the community, housing stock, and all sorts of other factors. Any of those things alone or in combination can drive some buyers elsewhere. But that doesn't mean demand will dry up--and all evidence points to the opposite, even after the Maplewood reval. Housing costs and taxes are high generally in the NY Metro area and especially the older, train town suburbs. Demand--and property values remain high in these areas. Maplewood/South Orange are not unique in their tax burden, though as with other highly stressed towns with few ratables, it is a bit worse here than average. Given that general, regional picture, there remain plenty of reasons to buy here and we should work to keep it that way. School quality and perceptions of school quality are different animals to begin with. Certainly there are plenty of objective measures that our schools are strong. Maintaining and improving them requires adequate (let alone optimal) funding. Our schools are already doing more with less. Our per student spending is less than the NJ average. We spend thousands less per student than many suburban districts in NY and CT and have similar to better outcomes on some measures (e.g. SAT scores, 4 year college attendance rates). Something like 90% of the budget goes to salaries and benefits--and the costs for those go up steadily, as do some other costs. The state share of our funding has been decreasing steadily. Holding a school budget flat is the equivalent of a cut. How much can we cut before quality suffers? Satisfaction and perception of quality will suffer immediately as additional reductions come to electives, music, art, foreign languages etc.--all things that are highly valued as part of our kids' education. Given our already high taxes, how much more can we afford? This would be an easier question if we did put the budget to a vote--plenty of suburban nyc towns do vote steadily to increase taxes to maintain--and even increase--school funding. We are, on balance, a highly affluent community. Median income is rising at a good clip in the two towns. No one wants to pay more property taxes; all of us can think of other things we'd like to spend that money on--but it does boil down to a question of whether we are willing to spend some of it on education--at least for now. In the longer run we have to find the will and the way to insist on changes in school funding since relying nearly exclusively on local property taxes is unreasonable, unfair to many, and unsustainable. | ||
| bobk Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 4281 Registered: 5-2001 |
The effect of property taxes on resale value is pretty well illustrated by the work that Larry Seltzer did with the real estate sales figures for the first six months of last year. Values increased fastest in areas where taxes were reduced and slowest in the neighborhood with the highest tax increase. | ||
| sportsnut Citizen Username: Sportsnut Post Number: 840 Registered: 10-2001 |
"Something like 90% of the budget goes to salaries and benefits--and the costs for those go up steadily, as do some other costs." Why do they go up steadily? Over the last 18 months my salary has increased approximately 1%. In addition my monthly insurance cost has almost doubled. In effect my take home pay has gone down. Corporations across the board are doing it - holding salaries or raising them minimally while asking their employees to shoulder more of the burden. Why can't the administration and the teachers do the same? Why is there no accountability? Why do we need to cut programs that benefit students while we have far too many administrators earning very high salaries that seem to grow every year? All of this is acceptable? | ||
| jfburch Citizen Username: Jfburch Post Number: 1216 Registered: 6-2001 |
That becomes a union issue. Regular raises are part of most teacher contracts. At this point fully paid health insurance is also stipulated (and health care costs increased about 10% nationally this year). Adminstrator benefits are an issue for some, but high, low, or average, they are a tiny fraction of the overall budget, so there's not really a lot of savings possible there. And yes, bobk, and that was expected and is probably a good thing. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but IIR, property values were rising at a good clip all over town, even if values in the cheapest and now less overtaxed neighborhoods were rising a bit faster. | ||
| bookgal Citizen Username: Bookgal Post Number: 457 Registered: 7-2001 |
Too bad that the administrators contracts entitle them to a bonus again this year. Remember the stink about Horoshak and crew getting nice bonus awards last year while teachers lost their jobs. Surprise! Whoever negotiated the contract on behalf of the BOE should be ashamed. And, if this is a hold over from the existing contract, let us hope that the renewed contract does not contain bonus clauses for extremely vague goals. | ||
| Dad23 Citizen Username: Dad23 Post Number: 35 Registered: 8-2003 |
No one wants to cut programs or the people that make the programs happen. That's why I keep looking at central office. 3 assistant superintendents + 1 business adminstrator + 1 asst. business adminstrator + 1 director of assessment + 1 public relations coordinator??? + 1 parenting center coordinator + 1 director of special ed + 1 supervisor of special ed + 1 technology coordinator I don't know how Horoshack sleeps at night never making any cuts in his own building. And most of these jobs earn over $80,000, and several earn over $120,000. | ||
| Cynicalgirl Citizen Username: Cynicalgirl Post Number: 281 Registered: 9-2003  |
Going forward, for school performance, I would look at the various measures that fringe's site notes, along with high school SATs (recent year)and trends, performance on state tests (all levels), presence of music programs at the elementary school. I did not when moving here, and I should have. And if we're spending less per student, I'd certainly want to make sure that every student in the school is legitimately in the school. | ||
| peteglider Citizen Username: Peteglider Post Number: 425 Registered: 8-2002 |
dad23 -- 11 at the central office does not seem terribly top heavy to me for a what, $75 million/year budget? however, i would suggest that based on my experience -- there are some less than impressive performers there. how does this compare to other districts? -- pete | ||
| sportsnut Citizen Username: Sportsnut Post Number: 844 Registered: 10-2001 |
Chalk up another reason as to why unions are ruining this country. | ||
| sportsnut Citizen Username: Sportsnut Post Number: 845 Registered: 10-2001 |
11 people for a $75 million dollar budget seems excessive. There are VPs in my company that are responsible for similar amounts and they handle it with usually two or three people, and they are held accountable for it as well. Don't come in under budget year one - lose your bonus, miss an even smaller budget the second year and you can start looking for a new job. | ||
| bobk Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 4289 Registered: 5-2001 |
Basically there are two issues with the school budget. First, the school population has exploded at a rate far in excess of the population growth of SO and MW as a whole. This costs money and increases taxes. Rightly or wrongly (and I ain't passing judgement here) a substantial number of people in the community, especially those with kids at CHS, believe there is a serious out of district student problem. I think that a lot of the tax resistance is coming from the feeling we are paying twice to educate kids from Abbot Districts, rightly or wrongly. If this issue is put to rest, a lot of the tax revolt will die down. Second, the teachers won a new contract last year and we have to pay for it. Again, I am putting this forward non-judgementally, but it is a fact. | ||
| Dad23 Citizen Username: Dad23 Post Number: 36 Registered: 8-2003 |
We can't keep everything we have without raising taxes. Whether 11 central office people is excessive, it still makes more sense to cut them than anybody else. | ||
| ladyrunner Citizen Username: Ladyrunner Post Number: 9 Registered: 9-2003 |
Are there really that many people at central office who make over $80,000? Do they really get bonuses? I guess I am naive. I don't want any cuts, but it looks like we have to make some. I don't want larger class sizes. I don't want weaker curriculum or instruction. I don't want less building discipline. So, it looks like central office should lose a person or two. | ||
| jfburch Citizen Username: Jfburch Post Number: 1222 Registered: 6-2001 |
We can't keep everything we have without raising taxes even if all 11 of those central office positions are cut. | ||
| ladyrunner Citizen Username: Ladyrunner Post Number: 10 Registered: 9-2003 |
I am sure there will be other cuts. But it still looks to me that central office could lose at least 2 positions. | ||
| fringe Citizen Username: Fringe Post Number: 269 Registered: 5-2001 |
Before accepting conventional wisdom that SOMSD's enrollment is exploding consider: * Total enrollment has increased 356 students since SY 97-98 or about 1% per year. * K-5 enrollment is declining. One must go back to SY 95-96 for the last time it was below the current level. * 6-8 enrollment is also declining with SY 99-00 being the last year the middle school population was less than 2003-04. * More high school students left the district other than through graduation than new arrivals replaced for 2003-04 (211 left, 177 students new to CHS and the district enrolled). * How, then, did the CHS enrollment increase? The 9th grade class is larger than the departing 12th grade class (the bubble effect) AND the number of students retained in grade (flunked) has increased (70 in 9th grade compared with 55 in 2002-03)(more than 25% of this year's 9th grade were not in SOMSD 8th grades in 2002-03). JTL | ||
| bobk Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 4304 Registered: 5-2001 |
Gosh Fringe and I was relying on your statistics.  I was refering to over the last ten or fifteen years as far as student growth is concerned. It is staggering that 25% of the kids enrolling as freshmen at CHS didn't graduate from our middle schools. Are you sure of this number? Another anomally is that the class size shrinks at CHS as the class moves towards graduation. Is this dropouts? | ||
| peteglider Citizen Username: Peteglider Post Number: 430 Registered: 8-2002 |
..personal experience... moved here from another town, my child started CHS as a 9th grader. after 2 years she is out of CHS and in private school -- b/c CHS just not the right place (all I'll say publically and in writing) There are other disillusioned parents out there as well who pull their kids out of CHS. And more who woudl if they could. I have never supported the "voucher" concept -- but my experiences in this district will make me rethink this at the next election. Pete | ||
| lumpyhead Citizen Username: Lumpyhead Post Number: 617 Registered: 3-2002 |
The 9th grade is increasing because people from our surrounding towns that don't have a good public school system, despite spending more money than we do, enroll their kids in Columbia. Better CHS than Irvington High or East Orange. They have a relative that lives in town and they 'legally' register their kid(s) here. The child is "legal" on paper except for the fact that they don't sleep in town, they sleep at home. They are just using the tax dollars their grandmother/grandfather, aunt or uncle are paying. Since CHS is where SO Middle and Maplewood Middle meet, the kids themselves think the "new" kids are from whatever middle school they didn't attend. I am sure that in the past when CHS only had 10, 11, and 12th grades this anomaly occured in the 10th grade as opposed to the 9th. Maybe Fringe or Bobk could look it up. | ||
| fringe Citizen Username: Fringe Post Number: 270 Registered: 5-2001 |
Agree that enrollment jumped substantially over the last decade, but it has flattened out during the last four or five years. We've been spending some time on district enrollment numbers with good assistance from the administration. A hard to understand chart showing the changes in enrollment between 15 October 2002 (SY 2002-03) and 15 october 2003 (SY 2003-04) has been posted at the Ins & Outs link under Demographis at http://hometown.aol.com/njfabian Using the Class of 2007 (this year's 9th grade as an example), one finds that: 8th grade enrollment 15 October 2002 = 533 * 3 students were kept back in 8th grade * 443 students advanced to 9th grade * 87 students left the district before 9th grade * 70 students from the Class of 2006 joined by being retained. * 75 students new to the district joined 9th grade enrollment 15 October 2003 = 443+70+75 = 588 Of the 70 retained students, 22 were new to the district last year and 48 attended SOMSD 8th grades in SY 2001-02. More to come |
