With all the hype and promises made in the April School Board election, the time has come when the tires hit the road for planning next year’s school budget.
Our school system has invited us to begin by participating in the budgeting process with an invitation to Wednesday nights June 4th meeting of the Committee of the Whole in which they plan to discuss the budget for next year and are asking for citizen input.
Given that our very own City Council has recently told us about the difficulties they are running into with the current budget and have eluded to the near impossibility of keeping to a 3% increase for the 2009 budget, I can not help but wonder what our school system will be looking to do to keep increases in the FPS budget to a minimum.
Will they be looking at asking the taxpayer what programs are they willing to give up? Much like the city has asked us, what city services are we willing to give up. While expecting the answer to be “why none of course”. My answer to this question will have have to be, cut back on the extracurriculars or increase the amount that parents pay for them, while the academics should not be touched.
I can hear the cry of “but if they get rid of (fill in the blank) my son/daughter will not want to go to school. But that is OK with me, as they can pay the extra dollars that are spent on those extracurriculars. Those educational tax dollars that are collected in the City of Franklin are just that, to educate and not to entertain. If you want your children to be entertained and that is the only way you can get them to attend school, then you can pay for that entertainment.
I look forward to see the budgeting expertise of Linda Witkowski (a budget director for Waukesha) and the business savvy of David Works in the first version of the 2009 budget.
Something else to note and keep in mind, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published these disturbing figures Tuesday June 3rd - " Foreclosures increased almost 45% in Milwaukee County during the first five months of the year compared with 2007 "
If you think that does not mean Franklin check out Foreclosures.Com that have 67 properties listed for Franklin. What would your priority be when trying to stay in your home, taxes or a mortgage? In addition our City Council has let us know that residential building in Franklin has come to a crawl, which has helped cause a shortfall in extra funds for the City and School System to use.
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