In addition to these challenges, the Baldwin School District has had the difficult task of creating a budget for the 2004-05 school year while facing a number of hurdles, including a minimal commercial tax base, which makes it a struggle to craft a budget while providing students with the opportunities that make for a rich and nurturing learning environment.
For these reasons, it's remarkable that the Board of Education and administration were able to create a budget without any cuts in programs and services, even finding room to add a few things that students and parents really wanted.
At $88.3 million, a 7.7 percent increase over this year's budget, the 2004-05 school budget is tight, and although there are some additions to programs and services, they are few and far from extravagant.
The only downside to all of this, which most residents have probably already guessed, is that school taxes will rise, with the levy set to increase to $67.2 million, a 9.7 percent jump. Most of the budget, 64.6 percent, is generated through property taxes.
But most of those increases, school officials said, are due to skyrocketing retirement and health-care costs as well as contractual obligations that are hitting schools across the state hard.
Still, the district has taken a number of commendable initiatives this year on behalf of its schools and residents, including lobbying aggressively for more equitable funding and state aid, which accounts for only 20 percent of the total 2004-05 budget. As in past years, if state aid to Baldwin, which is anticipated to be $17.6 million, were increased, it would be used to lower the tax levy.
And while the recently passed $26.9 million bond referendum won't impact the proposed budget, the board has asked lawmakers to introduce legislation that would exempt the bond from Wick's Law, something that lawmakers have done recently. If passed, it could save taxpayers millions of dollars.
With these initiatives and other efforts in mind, the Herald is endorsing the proposed Baldwin School District budget. If you've attended any budget workshops this year, you know that this is a board that strove to make the district a better place by maintaining programs while being fiscally prudent during such a challenging economic climate.
sub: Vote yes on the library
Voters should also endorse the $3.09 million library budget, which will allow the Library Board of Trustees to complete the building expansion, which will become a major community hub and provide Baldwin residents with exciting new amenities.
Like the school district, the library has not been immune to rising costs this year, and the expense of operating the new building will add to those increases, with the tax levy set to rise to $2.8 million, a 17.2 percent increase over this year's.
The project is also slightly behind schedule due to legal issues with the previous contractor, and the board should be diligent, which we believe it has been, in seeing the project to completion and avoiding future conflicts. Despite this, the board did an efficient job of making sure that the legal difficulties did not impact the budget.
sub: School board and library candidates
This year, three candidates are running for two seats on the Baldwin school board, including two incumbents, and all of them have lots of experience and genuinely care about the community.
The challenger, Joseph J. Carroll, who is also running for the library board, seems to have a keen understanding of budgets and economic issues, and would probably be a great asset to the board.
But we believe that Board President James Scannell and member Mary Clark have been doing a fantastic job in their current positions -- Scannell as an effective, open and responsible leader, and Clark as an advocate for parents -- and we feel that there is no need for change at this time.
And with a number of retirements and administrative changes coming up, including School Superintendent Kathy Weiss's retirement at the end of 2004-05, the current board is capable of hiring highly qualified administrators.
It has already demonstrated this by hiring Ed Signa, assistant superintendent for business and administrative services, and recently announcing that Mike Roccoforte will replace Jeff Hollman as assistant superintendent for instruction. We believe Scannell and Clark should get your vote.
A parent deserves your vote
In the library trustee election, in which three challengers are vying for an open seat, we feel there is only one choice, and that is to vote for Jacqueline Minissale Tsenes.
Instead of sitting around and complaining, Tsenes took the initiative as a parent of young children who really wants to make a difference at the library and in her community. She has displayed such energy and enthusiasm for the job that we believe she will do great things on the library board and play an important role in what will be a new era in Baldwin's downtown when the library expansion is completed this year.
The other candidates, Carroll and John Candido, had very impressive credentials and stated their positions clearly. Unfortunately, they were absent from last week's Baldwin Council of PTAs Candidates Forum, and the public did not have the opportunity to hear them speak about the issues. Still, Tsenes was already a strong candidate with a clear vision, and she should be elected to the library board.
The Herald encourages you to vote yes for both the school and library budgets, and we endorse James Scannell and Mary Clark for school board trustee.
