You gotta love it. New Jersey is never content being considered second to our neighbors in New York or Philadelphia. So when Bernie Madoff started stealing all the headlines for his massive New York-based Ponzi scheme, is it any wonder that New Jersey sensibilities were bruised?
Well fear not, East Brunswick now has our very own version of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and maybe we've done them one better by adding a little Rod Blagovitch flavor as well. For those that attended the East Brunswick Board of Education meeting where the Tentative budget was announced you were treated to the Blagovitch-like declaration that this was indeed an unprecedented budget no less than a dozen times.
What followed was the expected near hour long self-congratulatory drivel from practially everyone sitting at the board table. Much ado was made of the newly coined rhetoric for this year's unprcedented budget. In past years we've heard the 'for the children' refrain. This year the party line has changed to the 'from the administrators' refrain. Instead of asking the taxpayers to suffer 'for the children' the board and administration would like us to believe that this year the suffering is coming 'from the administrators' so that we taxpayers don't have to.
As Bernie Madoff's investors learned - - as will EB-Bernie's constituents - - if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. EB-Bernie isn't promising undeliverable 40% returns on investments. Our Bernie would have us believe that through the magic of hard work and tough negotiating we can expect a school budget that delivers not only a zero tax increase on the operating budget but an acutal 4 cent decrease because the district somehow has engineered a better mortgage deal. And all of this magic is being delivered while suffering under the onerous burden of meeting the state imposed 'efficiency standards' that really aren't quite that fair.
Hmmmmmm, not so fast EB-Bernie. Don't the administrators you so proudly touted as giving up their 2009-2010 salary increases to save this budget have a contract? Have you actually modified the contracts for the EB PSA, the EB Superintendent and all of the non-unit EB employees to include this provision that they will give up this salary increase? Or is this one of those nod and wink deals where they are simply postponing the increase to a later time? And even if you have completed all of these contract changes how much money does it actually add up to when you count up all of the salary increases that won't happen for these self-sacrificing administrators? I bet it's nowhere near the more than $900,000 that you are reducing teacher salaries by. But maybe EB-Bernie and his colleagues were too busy congratulating themselves to provide any details.
Hmmmmm, what about the money that gets stashed away every year in the 'slush fund'? Okay, okay, the official name is the 'Unreserved General Fund Balance' but it's still a handy little place to hide a lot of money and it gets used to manipulate the amount your taxes increase.
Here's how it works: The school district raises money largely through increasing your taxes and always raises taxes enough so that it gives them more money than they will need in a year to actually run the schools. Oh they will complain that this is a 'bare bones' budget and they'll cry and complain that this is the 'smart' thing to do because they need to plan for unexpected expenses. But the state has been wise to this game for years and keeps trying to rein in school districts. It used to be that if any money was left at the end of the year only some of it (6% of the general budget) could be kept as reserve and the rest had to go to 'taxpayer relief'
Sounds good right? Any left over money gets returned to the taxpayers as taxpayer relief. When did you last get a refund check from the school district? Well you don't. Instead what they do is roll that left-over money into the budget for the following year and you never see it. What you do see is that they are 'only' raising your taxes 26 cents instead of 30 cents. How is this possible - - - all that extra money they collected last year enables them to claim they are 'holding the line' and not raising your taxes as much this year. Not because they are spending less, but because they already took that money out of your pocket last year when they didn't really need it!
As part of the state's efficiency standards they now require that school districts can only keep 2% of the general budget as reserve at the end of the year instead of 6%. Sounds like pennies, just like sales tax right? Well, here's what EB-Bernie moved around over the last several years from this 'slush fund' accounting: after the 05-06 school year there was roughly $6.6 million excess dollars that had to be rolled into the next year's budget; after the 06-07 school year there was $7.2 million excess dollars that had to be rolled over; after the 07-08 school year more than $9 million excess dollars had to be rolled over.
So when EB-Bernie tells you this year that there is a 0 cent increase in the tax rate the question you want to ask is: How much of that is because of excess dollars that you took from my taxes last year that you really didn't need to?
And before EB-Bernie retreats back to his penthouse, let's ask him one more question. The state efficiency standards are interesting new rules, in fact they are now the law. So EB-Bernie, do we really get to choose which laws we agree with and only follow them or do we need to follow all of the laws that are in place? One piece of the efficiency standard is that we are only allowed to have one custodian per 17,500 sq ft of space and indeed EB Bernie (reluctantly I'm sure) has had to reduce the size of our custodial staff to meet this legal requirement.
Hmmmm, the same efficiency standard also says that districts can no longer have dedicated public relations functions, that these duties need to be performed by the chief school administrator, the business administrator or some other staff. While EB-Bernie was busy eliminating the custodian he must have missed the fact that we still have a "Director of Community Relations and Programs" at an annual salary of $109,000. Sounds like a PR job to me. Hey EB-Bernie, maybe one of these positions could pick up the PR duties and save the taxpayers some money: Superintendent $209,000/year; Deputy Superintendent $163,000/year; Assistant Superintendent $147,000/year; or the Business Administrator $148,000/year?
3/20/2009
Our Very Own Bernie Madoff Here in East Brunswick
You gotta love it. New Jersey is never content being considered second to our neighbors in New York or Philadelphia. So when Bernie Madoff started stealing all the headlines for his massive New York-based Ponzi scheme, is it any wonder that New Jersey sensibilities were bruised?
Well fear not, East Brunswick now has our very own version of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and maybe we've done them one better by adding a little Rod Blagovitch flavor as well. For those that attended the East Brunswick Board of Education meeting where the Tentative budget was announced you were treated to the Blagovitch-like declaration that this was indeed an unprecedented budget no less than a dozen times.
What followed was the expected near hour long self-congratulatory drivel from practially everyone sitting at the board table. Much ado was made of the newly coined rhetoric for this year's unprcedented budget. In past years we've heard the 'for the children' refrain. This year the party line has changed to the 'from the administrators' refrain. Instead of asking the taxpayers to suffer 'for the children' the board and administration would like us to believe that this year the suffering is coming 'from the administrators' so that we taxpayers don't have to.
As Bernie Madoff's investors learned - - as will EB-Bernie's constituents - - if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. EB-Bernie isn't promising undeliverable 40% returns on investments. Our Bernie would have us believe that through the magic of hard work and tough negotiating we can expect a school budget that delivers not only a zero tax increase on the operating budget but an acutal 4 cent decrease because the district somehow has engineered a better mortgage deal. And all of this magic is being delivered while suffering under the onerous burden of meeting the state imposed 'efficiency standards' that really aren't quite that fair.
Hmmmmmm, not so fast EB-Bernie. Don't the administrators you so proudly touted as giving up their 2009-2010 salary increases to save this budget have a contract? Have you actually modified the contracts for the EB PSA, the EB Superintendent and all of the non-unit EB employees to include this provision that they will give up this salary increase? Or is this one of those nod and wink deals where they are simply postponing the increase to a later time? And even if you have completed all of these contract changes how much money does it actually add up to when you count up all of the salary increases that won't happen for these self-sacrificing administrators? I bet it's nowhere near the more than $900,000 that you are reducing teacher salaries by. But maybe EB-Bernie and his colleagues were too busy congratulating themselves to provide any details.
Hmmmmm, what about the money that gets stashed away every year in the 'slush fund'? Okay, okay, the official name is the 'Unreserved General Fund Balance' but it's still a handy little place to hide a lot of money and it gets used to manipulate the amount your taxes increase.
Here's how it works: The school district raises money largely through increasing your taxes and always raises taxes enough so that it gives them more money than they will need in a year to actually run the schools. Oh they will complain that this is a 'bare bones' budget and they'll cry and complain that this is the 'smart' thing to do because they need to plan for unexpected expenses. But the state has been wise to this game for years and keeps trying to rein in school districts. It used to be that if any money was left at the end of the year only some of it (6% of the general budget) could be kept as reserve and the rest had to go to 'taxpayer relief'
Sounds good right? Any left over money gets returned to the taxpayers as taxpayer relief. When did you last get a refund check from the school district? Well you don't. Instead what they do is roll that left-over money into the budget for the following year and you never see it. What you do see is that they are 'only' raising your taxes 26 cents instead of 30 cents. How is this possible - - - all that extra money they collected last year enables them to claim they are 'holding the line' and not raising your taxes as much this year. Not because they are spending less, but because they already took that money out of your pocket last year when they didn't really need it!
As part of the state's efficiency standards they now require that school districts can only keep 2% of the general budget as reserve at the end of the year instead of 6%. Sounds like pennies, just like sales tax right? Well, here's what EB-Bernie moved around over the last several years from this 'slush fund' accounting: after the 05-06 school year there was roughly $6.6 million excess dollars that had to be rolled into the next year's budget; after the 06-07 school year there was $7.2 million excess dollars that had to be rolled over; after the 07-08 school year more than $9 million excess dollars had to be rolled over.
So when EB-Bernie tells you this year that there is a 0 cent increase in the tax rate the question you want to ask is: How much of that is because of excess dollars that you took from my taxes last year that you really didn't need to?
And before EB-Bernie retreats back to his penthouse, let's ask him one more question. The state efficiency standards are interesting new rules, in fact they are now the law. So EB-Bernie, do we really get to choose which laws we agree with and only follow them or do we need to follow all of the laws that are in place? One piece of the efficiency standard is that we are only allowed to have one custodian per 17,500 sq ft of space and indeed EB Bernie (reluctantly I'm sure) has had to reduce the size of our custodial staff to meet this legal requirement.
Hmmmm, the same efficiency standard also says that districts can no longer have dedicated public relations functions, that these duties need to be performed by the chief school administrator, the business administrator or some other staff. While EB-Bernie was busy eliminating the custodian he must have missed the fact that we still have a "Director of Community Relations and Programs" at an annual salary of $109,000. Sounds like a PR job to me. Hey EB-Bernie, maybe one of these positions could pick up the PR duties and save the taxpayers some money: Superintendent $209,000/year; Deputy Superintendent $163,000/year; Assistant Superintendent $147,000/year; or the Business Administrator $148,000/year?
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