A Quid Pro Quo for Passing the Referenda

The District must have a budget process that allows the Board of Education and the public to review the budget, and balance the interests of the public, students and staff to accomplish the effective and efficient operation of the School District, and to ensure that its priorities are addressed.

The current timeline for budget approval does not allow the Board or the public to have reasonable and informed access to the information necessary to balance those interests, or to ensure those priorities.

Instead, current and past budget practices allow staff contracts to be accepted, budget cuts to be proposed, and additional programs to be considered, all without the ability to place these items within the budget as a whole, and therefore balance all interests.

Modifying the budget process to allow this balancing, to me, is non-negotiable.

I, for one, will not be supporting any of the referenda on the May 24 ballot, unless the budget process is fixed.

I will be voting in favor of all the referenda on May 24, if and only if the Board takes actions prior to the referenda to ensure all proposed staff contracts and other agreements are incorporated into the previously published budget and not acted separately upon by the Board; and, if and only if, all cuts to programs are proposed and presented in the context of the previously published budget, and not acted separately upon by the Board.

In order to get my vote, the 2005-2006 budget process and timelines need to be modified, even at this late date, to conform. We cannot reneg on any contracts already voted on by the Board, and we cannot review the failure to consider adminstrative renewals by the Board, and we cannot pull back the publicly proposed cuts to await the timely arrival of the budget.

But, we must be delivered an estimated 2005-2006 budget sooner than the proposed May 2nd to give the public time to review it, place the proposed cuts into its budget context, and plan for alternative budget adjustments. At the latest, the budget can be delivered to the Board and public on April 22nd, even under the current timeline, by posting the budget on the website prior to or instead of printing (we might even be able to save printing costs!).

Accepting the referenda for a changed budget process is a quid pro quo contract between the Board and the public. It is a prototypical win-win agreement. All sides to the coming debate over the referenda get everything they want. Those in favor of the referenda get the referenda passed; those who want a significantly better budget process get their interests heard.

Accepting such a challenge might even avoid the coming, and, what I perceive to be, very devisive battle among the many sides to debates.

For those who find such an agreement more of a compromise than a win-win agreement, consider it progress towards opening up the budget process � progress that could have been accomplished years ago.

The real debate has not started, but I�ve already heard some loose lips. I�ve heard it said (paraphrasing), �If you can�t afford the tax increases, take a mortgage out on your home.� And I�ve read comments that said (paraphrasing again), �If the Leopold expansion was in a white area, there would be no problem. The opposition are racists.�

Unless some agreement is accepted, I don�t see a reasoned and tempered debate occurring in the next month and a half.

Instead, we�ll be spitting at each other.

Posted by Larry Winkler at April 13, 2005 10:51 AM
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