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5-31-2007 My name is Heather Titus and I am an active senior at Cherry Valley- Springfield Central School in many community events. One of the most recent of such events was initiated by our Participation in Government class upon the CV-S school budget vote on Thursday, May 10. Our class was in charge of running a survey to help analyze the votes, which we were extremely successful in doing, thus we would like to extend our thanks to all the voters who participated. One surprising turnout however, which set me quite aback the next day was my discovery that the Budget, had failed to pass by a mere 27 votes. Indignantly, I began searching for the reasoning behind such a turnout in the ballots that our Government class had attained. I found it quite interesting that a significant amount of our anonymous survey- takers who had voted the budget down, do actually have children attending CV-S, and most of this percentage also said that they were not happy with our school’s level of education. I found this rather contradictory. Should it not be obvious that voting the budget down would do the exact opposite of what these voters wish? Decreasing the amount of money and educational opportunities in our school by voting against the budget will surely not improve our level of education, but most definitely hinder it. Allow me to just say that the AP courses and sports that I have excelled in at CV-S, under some of the best instructors I have ever met during my high school experiences in Europe or the US, are the ultimate reason for my acceptance into a promising University. These AP courses that formed my core curriculum this year, which would more than likely cease to exist should the budget fail to pass, have not only gotten me noticed by colleges, but have prepared me for college- level education. Unfortunately, the expenses for these tests and classes are not something that a failed budget can uphold. I can only hope that the voters realize what benefits our students receive by passing the budget, and how their education here would be hindered should the budget fail to pass. Returning to the ballots from our government class, I also was curious as to what source people who voted against the budget could have attained information from by circling "other." I concluded that some of the populace to whom this applied were referring to an illegitimate letter in a mass mailing entitled "2007/08 CV-S School Budget (Facts " Did you know)." I say illegitimate because the so called "facts" in this letter would more accurately be referred to as libel. The only intelligent thing the author of that article did was fail to print his/her name, keeping them conveniently impervious to any lawsuit. Some examples of the illegitimate graphs and statistics of this article were "The CV-S Budget compared to CPI." While this appears intelligent it is deceiving because one could not compare our school’s budget to the CPI; perhaps comparing it to the CLI (Cost Living Index) would be applicable, but not CPI. I also found it amusing that the writer said that each student at CV-S has an average personal cost of about $18,326 a year. This deceiving number was apparently taken from the $11M Budget divided by 600 students, without having taken into account what this money really funds at our school! How else would we ensure gas expenses, electricity, and necessities needed to keep our school going? All of the statistics seemed to be pulled from the air in this article. I also highly doubt that CVS is ranked as low as the article claims; after all, we are being noticed across New York as a Blue Ribbon School this year for which we had a celebration a few months ago. This is recognition by the state government program, saying that our school has in grades K-12, proven ourselves to be "either academically superior" in our states or "demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement" (US Department of Education). We also recently had the pleasure of hosting our Annual Track Invitational, with the local schools attending plus a team all the way from Long Island. With this in mind, it is devastating for the students to think that athletics, art, and advanced academics will be negatively affected should the Budget fail upon the next vote on June 19. I encourage every citizen to vote for what they feel is important to CV-S on June 19, disregard the mass mailings from unnamed authors, and listen to the voices of the youth of this generation. This will undoubtedly make all the difference to future students, and to the future of our education. Heather Titus Senior at CV-S CV-S budget is excessive number of us local taxpayers have met with the CV-S BOE and administration and actively participated during the budget process to determine why the budget increases 3 to 4 times the rate of inflation while student enrollment continues to decline. We have analyzed and recommended changes that would have minimized the budget acceleration but would not have impacted anyone’s job or salary. Not one single recommendation to limit excessive budget growth within that timeframe has ever been accepted. Of note over this same time period is the fact that neither the CV-S BOE nor the administration has presented a single alternative solution or plan for controlling costs. Certainly the administration must be the proponent of quality education, but they demonstrate minimal consideration in their role of stewards of public funds. Although courteous, the BOE has stonewalled any progress towards limiting excessive budget growth. That is their right to do so, but it is also our right as taxpayers to take action by involving the voting public. Taxes continue to escalate beyond the cost of inflation creating a hardship on many families. This lack of sensitivity towards the community is at the forefront of the frustration felt by many of us who are involved in bringing information to the attention of the public. Frankly speaking the CV-S budget process is a detriment to the community. The taxpayer will continue to vote down budgets that simply rubber stamp demands for exorbitant increases in educational costs without any accountability or clear connection to quality education. We encourage public debate on these issues so that families with children in CV-S will know that we not only support education but we also demand fiscal accountability. If you want our support for the school budget, make it financially palatable. We, your neighbors, families with children in CV-S, teachers, farmers/etc who are frustrated that no recognition or progress in controlling spending is addressed in the budget. Wilfred Bruneau Cooperstown |
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