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Stop the insanity and you will fix the problem. The focus of your attention should be towards the Mayor and the City Council. They are the ones grandstanding in front of the cameras and their constituents, but when it comes time to actually fund the schools they can be found cowering in the corner. If you want to correct the problems you need to start at the source, and that is the Mayor and City Council. They continue to get a pass from the public. Every year taxes continue to go up, but the schools are level funded. The City budget continues to grow but the schools are told to continue cutting. Whenever the Mayor or Council is questioned about why the schools do not get an increase in funding, their response is school enrollment is down. Question, if the enrollment in schools is down, then wouldn't that mean the general population is decreasing as well? Using their own logic, the City should be level funded every year as well, right?

The Mayors total proposed budget is $238 million, $157 million going to the schools and $81 million to the City. All of the Mayors $3.6 million tax increase is going to the City side of the budget. That means city spending is budgeted to increase 4.65% for the coming fiscal year. Increasing expenses 4.65% is not my idea of fiscal responsibility. The Mayor plans to increase his spending 4.65% but tells the schools, spend the same as last year. The Mayor and Council have done this for several years now and have not been held accountable for it.

This is by no means an endorsement of the manner by which the School Committee or Administration has conducted itself either. There should have been a long term plan put in place several years ago, mapping out the direction of the school system. Rather than their current approach, which is akin to trying to rearrange the deck chairs after the ship has already hit the ice berg.

The real question we should be asking is why have we seen a steady decline in enrollment over the last twenty years. Where did all the students go, why are there no new ones coming? If a private sector company had increased costs and declining sales for twenty years would the CEO still have a job? Of course not. But the Mayor, Council and School Committee have consistently increased taxes and spending while watching the population decline for twenty years, yet they continue to get reelected. Continuing to elect the same people over and over again and expecting to the results to be different is the definition of insanity.

From: Schools need to make cuts, but it won’t be Gorton yet

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