The economy is in sharp decline.  Unemployment is high… and still rising.  Local businesses, both large and small, are finding ways of cutting costs, doing more with less.  People are losing their incomes, and even many of those who remain employed are suffering mandatory 3 percent, 5 percent, even 7 percent pay cuts. 

 And yet, the School Board Finance Committee proposed an initial 3.5 percent budget increase.

 The town council asked the finance committee to keep the annual budget increase “as close to 3 percent as possible.” Why not “as much under 3 percent as possible?”  Better yet, why not mandate a moratorium on any increase?  Like so many of us do, find ways to fund any necessary increased expenditures by trimming elsewhere.  

Example; recent budget increases reflected, among other things, rising oil prices.  Prices are down now, and they have been for awhile.  Heating oil and bus fuel costs less.  Where are those savings going?

 Our students are the ones who have to sacrifice; fewer field trips, diminished athletic programs, new limits on classroom supplies… but administrator salaries? Never reduced. Never even frozen.  Increased year after year.  The school administrators continue to prosper while the school takes the hit. 

 Shouldn’t the budget consider the parents’ fiscal hardship? This budget should do more with the same… or less. That’s responsible money management.

 Ask for answers. Email school administrators.  Email town councilors.  It takes three minutes from the comfort of your computer chair.

 Peter Schild

Scarborough