- By Dan Veaner
- Opinions
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That confirmed my own uncertainty about Tuesday's vote. This one is impossible to call. Even with the doom saying about the consequences of being forced to go to a contingency budget it is hard to guess how the vote will come out. The situation is unacceptable, yet taxpayers are going to have to accept something. Here are questions I've been trying to work out:
- Why was the budget so high? I am thinking it is because the Board of Education has been reactive rather than proactive. It would require some toughness, but keeping the budget to 3.5% at most isn't impossible. If they do it the district retains its autonomy and can focus what resources it has on programs Lansing residents care about. If the State does it, that's who calls the shots. And by proposing a 7.5% budget, having it fail, and then proposing a 6.79% budget isn't the Board making it harder for taxpayers to accept a much needed capital project?
- Would arts and sports really have to be cut? That's what the rumors are, flying around town. As far as I can determine the School Board would decide what has to go, and it could be our very low class sizes or anything they choose as long as it didn't exceed the contingency cap. Some folks in town are against raising class sizes at all, others say that while it's not a first choice Lansing, like everybody else, has to bite the bullet and budget responsibly. The latter argue that most of us were in larger classes and we turned out alright. Just as a measure of what this would mean, four teaching positions equal more than half of the additional cuts the contingency budget would require.
- Why don't we know what these cuts would be before we vote? The Board of Education says there is no plan. Superintendent Mark Lewis says that if it comes to that people who care about sports are pitted against people who care about theater, who are pitted against people who care about music... and so on. He says that he's seen this process tear communities apart. I believe that, but I also think that after everyone weighs in it's the Board of Education that decides what the cuts will be. If it's their responsibility then, isn't it their responsibility now? With the vote so uncertain, wouldn't it help to have a 'Plan B' before the vote? If I knew what cuts were contemplated I could make a judgment about how much they mean to me. And that would drive my vote.
- Are we stuck with this budget for now? A lot of people are saying that we are stuck with it, because contingency is so unpalatable. That we're forced to accept an unacceptable budget, but next year we have to start right away to build one that the community finds palatable. I am stuck on that 'Plan B' idea. I am not convinced the contingency budget would be such a disaster, but I don't know it wouldn't be. I wish the Board had taken more of a leadership role in that regard. As it is I've heard some say they feel they are being strong-armed to vote for the budget, even though they don't want to.
I want to be clear -- I am not advocating voting against the budget. I am actually uncomfortable with the possibility that it might fail. I'm just saying that it would have been easier for me to decide how to vote if I knew the answers to these questions. As it is I don't yet know how I am going to vote.
But I do intend to vote and I hope more people will turn out this time than did last month. The more people that vote, the richer the conversation is. If low voter turnout tells the School Board that taxpayers don't really care -- that is not a message I would hope for. A decisive vote one way or the other would send them a much more productive message that they could use to lead the district in the directions voters tell them they want.
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