Get out the scissors

So the RTD describes what shade of rose-colored glasses the School Administration has on this year.

Superintendent Marcus J. Newsome is proposing a $523.8 million operating budget for fiscal 2012. The budget is $6 million more than fiscal 2011; that amount would cover the one-time bonus.

Pretty rosy world.  Newsome has the gall to produce and recommend a school budget increase?   He must think the Taxpayer got a raise this past year!  A better way to look at it may be Newsome proposes a budget DECREASE for the Taxpayer. 

What's more important is that Newsome is not planning ahead for the future years. 

And looking ahead, he expressed concern about fiscal 2012, saying he expects a budget shortfall of $15 million to $20 million.

OR this....

Newsome stressed that those funds are one-time savings and will not be available in fiscal 2013.

BRILLANT! Newsome keeps putting off the inevitable. 

Here are a few things to contemplate from the Taxpayer: 

1.  Get to a sustainable program level for the revenue stream that Chesterfield County residents control. 80% of education funding should come from the locality 20% from the state and none from the federal government.
2.  Get the state and the federal government out of a local education issues. We can no longer afford distant bureaucrats running our lives and training our children to jump through their hoops
3.  Return the Taxpayer's wallet back to the blessings of self government and to the principle that the government that governs closest to the people governs the best.


So why pay bonuses that we cannot afford? Salaries in Chesterfield are pretty much flat.

Get out the scissors and make like Dave Matthews and Cut, cut, cut, cut