Letter to the Editor: School Budget Process a Rollercoaster of Good, Bad and Ugly

I gave up riding roller coasters when I was about 15 years old, yet since the announcement from Trenton on March 17^th that all of our state aid was being cut, I have felt like I've been on a frightening roller coaster ride constantly in the grip of that unique mixed feeling of exhilaration and nausea. Tonight that ride has finally come to an end; we have a finalized school district budget. I would like to take a minute and reflect on the ride – the good, the bad and the ugly.

I will begin with the good. I need to first thank the mayor and council for their willingness to work with us rather than against us since the April 20th budget defeat. The process has been remarkably positive, completely devoid of rancor and though I am not happy about the outcome, I have been pleased with the process. The tone has been consistently one of cooperation and respect. I look forward to building on our working relationship to find new and better ways to serve this community as a whole.

At the council meeting last Friday night, I was once again reminded of why I love being a citizen of Madison and a member of this board. I thank the members of our staff, parents and community members who came out in support of the school district in these very tough times. I said it on Friday and I will say it again tonight – we have the best employees in the world. Dedicated, compassionate and devoted to the students of Madison – custodians, maintenance staff, secretaries, teaching assistants, teachers and administrators, everyone has come together and helped us through this crisis, putting aside the political rhetoric and willingly making personal sacrifices so that we can keep our schools as strong as possible in these truly unprecedented times.

We are also blessed to have intelligent, savvy parents and community members who are increasingly willing to make themselves a part of the process. We will need to lean more and more on our parents for financial support and more importantly for increased levels of advocacy in Trenton. Also, I encourage all parents to support our Madison Education Foundation, not only with your dollars but also with your time and ideas.

The bad – we are on very thin financial ice...we have no reserves, virtually no surplus, no state aid and a budget that was marginally viable to start, which has now been further reduced. I understand that the council was in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation and tried to find a position of compromise. We are appreciative that it is not worse and thankful that the graciousness of our employees has mitigated some of the damage and that their spoken willingness to help us find further savings will help lessen the gap. Let's not forget even for a minute, however, that we have cut staff, programs and opportunities for our students; these cuts undermine the mission and vision this community has for its schools. I was so proud to be a part of the committee of amazing people who came together to write our mission statement but now as I sit here and read it I have real concerns about our future ability so sustain let alone grow the commitment to our students it professes.

Our administration together with this board has worked very hard over the years to achieve responsible and reasonable budgets that meet the needs of our students while balancing those needs against the impact to our taxpayers. Next year's budget is now roughly three quarters of a million dollars less than this year's and because of the way school budgeting works it will be very difficult to recover from that loss. We will continue to confront the issues before us head on. We will look even harder at every aspect of how we conduct business to make sure we are doing so as efficiently as possible. While examining every aspect of our finances I believe we also need to look at how we are communicating our message to the community. We need to do an even better job educating everyone about not only all the outstanding accomplishments of our students but about the challenges we face. To this end I am asking for your help on how best to achieve this goal. Please share with us your suggestions on how we can better engage the community.

No one will be able to convince me that what has gone on in this state over the course of the last few months is anything short of ugly – it has been divisive and destructive. New Jersey has built one of the best public education systems in the country. Yet it is being torn down from within, primarily I believe because the one thing that has been consistently overlooked is the funding system on which it relies for support. The system is broken, inadequate and frankly unjust and as a result it has become sadly easier to assign blame than develop real solutions. We understand that changes have to be made and fully support some of the "tools" that have been adopted and/or proposed – healthcare contributions, changes to the pension system and collective bargaining but to give us the tools while the house is being torn down is an insult at best. The proposed 2-1/2% hard cap is not a real solution either just another gimmick but one that will bring us to the breakpoint. We have had to consistently make significant cuts just to stay within the 4% cap and not just as a result of our contract obligations as some would have you believe but because of the costs of all the "other stuff" which get no air time yet continue to spiral out of control. Things like healthcare, energy, private special education tuitions and transportation – no caps, no controls, yet these real issues seem to fly below the radar.

We need to ask our legislators why in a state full of intelligent highly educated individuals we cannot find the intellectual and political will to stop the finger pointing and move towards mounting a united effort to fix the funding formula once and for all so that it serves everyone – children and taxpayers alike.

Madison always pulls together but the time has come for Madison to demand that New Jersey do the same.

Respectfully Submitted By, 

Lisa Ellis,
President, Madison Board of Education