BOE BUDGET 2007

On election day, April 17, 2007, it will be 1092 days since the last time a budget passed. This year the BOE Budget is $130M. The Levy (the portion paid in property tax) will be the number you will see on the ballot $101.4M. Actually in addition there is another $5.5M we will pay for on bonds that we voter for in the past. Thus a $106.9M total. Last year the total was $102.4M.

The way the BOE calculates the percent increase in the budget is by looking at the impact on the homeowner of a house with the average assessment of $354,323. Since the school year (July-June) is split by the conventional year they average 1/2 of last years budget with 1/2 of this years budget and come up with an increase to the average homeowner of $160.56 or 4%. TUF has argued with that method in the past. We would calculate the impact of this budget by looking at all of last school year vs all of this school year. Usually that comes out to a higher percentage then the BOE calculates. This year it turns out TUF's way of doing it yields an increase of "only" $129 or 3.1%. Last Year inflation calculated by the consumer price index was 3.6%. Thus this budget grew less than inflation.

We'd also like to point out that Gene Unger was elected to the BOE last year and was on the finance committee. He went over the budget line by line. Gene, we will remind you when on Council, was given $250,000 to build the veteran's memorial. He did it for about $50,000. So when Gene Unger says that he believes in this budget then we believe we should back him (at least for this year). He also said that he believes that there is more to cut but he will need more time to find it. Thus TUF will support this budget but we will point out that this budget increase is as high as the law allows. In other words it is a "Capped Budget". We challenge Mr. Unger and the other members of the BOE that next year they produce a budget at least 1% under cap.

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