Dear School Board...We've been trying to communicate to you OUR wishes for some time now. You...who were elected to represent US. But you refused to listen.
And so, on Monday night, the winds of change blew at a gale force. And this time, you can't just ignore the message and rationalize that it comes from just a Couch...or a Fetterly...or a Mealy...or even a stand-up guy, like John Welke, whom you accuse of having ulterior motives. Because it came from almost 200 community members.
This time the community came out in force to attend the annual meeting that you do as little as possible to publicize. And they came out in record numbers. You want to know WHY they came out? Because the WE gave them ALL the information...the WE told them that the tax levy was in the electors' hands---not yours.
We told you that we don't trust you. And we put an exclamation point on it by electing alderman Hariah Hutkowski to chair the meeting, which has historically been the role of the board president.
We told you that it was preposterous for you to be doling out 3.8% (or more) raises to administration and admin support staff when the rest of the world was facing job and wage cuts. But you played Santa with our hard-earned tax dollars anyway. So we voted to cut YOUR salaries by 5% so that you might better understand the pain being experienced by the people that elected you...the people that approved over $130M in school buildings in the past 4 years. The very people that helped you out when you needed it, yet whom you turned your backs on in THEIR time of need.
We told you that the 12.56% mill increase was too much...and to make cuts in the budget. But you refused. But our pleas to use fund balance to lower the mill rate fell on deaf ears. So we voted 124 to 60 to reduce the tax levy by $2M, which should effectively drop your proposed mill rate increase of $1.32 by about 50 cents.
Any questions?
How does it feel to be on the other side of the fence? They say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, and the picture of school board president John Whalen sitting with his back to the community for virtually the entire meeting sure spoke volumes. One resident asked you to explain your rationale for giving huge raises in times of salary reductions and lost jobs. But you all refused to answer her.
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