Spring 2003 Edition       

The Budget:  Understand The Choices by Matt Greenfield On April 15 all of Fair Lawn will have the opportunity to vote on the 2003-2004 public school budget.     When the voters go to the polls, some will see only the digits after the dollar sign.  Others will see the compelling necessity of putting more funding into the schools of our community.   When the borough's voters walk into their voting machines, some residents will imagine only added figures on the tax bill they are bound to receive.  Others will imagine students gaining more knowledge than they had thought possible.   What is important is not what you are imagining as you cast your vote; what is important is how you see the choice you are making.  Every voter should see the choice for what it is: a question of whether Fair Lawn must meet its responsibility to support an ever-growing student population.  It is a question of whether education is worth the confidence we give it, and it is a question of whether securing the future for the next generation of leaders is worth the funding we provide it.  To view the April ballot in any other light would be a gross misinterpretation of the role of public education and our responsibility to it.   For much of the past decade, it was safe for Fair Lawn residents to simply take for granted that the annual budget vote for the Board of Education would pass without question.  In town, everyone became more and more confident that there was virtually no risk of a budget being voted down.  A year ago that blissfully naïve perception was shattered suddenly when the BOE budget was rejected by only four votes.  If ever there was an event in Fair Lawn that showed each of us just how important our vote can be, this was it.   Gone in this hour are the times when the voter who understands the importance of education can sit at home and assume a budget will pass.  Gone, too, are the times when the misinformed resident can simply turn a deaf ear to the cry of a school system in desperate need of funding.  If ever there was an appropriate time for an indifferent citizen to back away from his responsibility to vote, to speak, to voice his opinion, and to stand up in the name of tomorrow’s leaders this is not the time.   Nobody is going to deny that the Board of Education’s budget is large, yet such is the expense of educating nearly 5,000 students.  It was with true chagrin that the Board accepted a $61 million budget (a 4.65-percent hike from last year).  Then again, the circumstances left the members of the BOE with little other recourse.  Fair Lawn schools will be receiving less state aid than in previous years, and an expanding student population in the borough requires more resources than ever before.  The burden of the taxpayers is lifted, however, by the extraordinary news from the Mayor and Council that there will be no increase in municipal taxes this year.   Of course, many of this year’s school budget increases are a direct result of last year’s rejected BOE budget.  Because last year’s budget failed by only four votes, the Mayor and Council were able to make cuts primarily through deferrals of funding from last year’s budget to this year’s.  In doing so, they avoided cutting programs funded by the 2002-03 budget, but an expansion was forced upon the 2003-04 budget.  If this budget is rejected, Fair Lawn will be set onto a downward spiral of rejected budgets and forced budgetary expansions.   The Board of Education did all they could to make this budget fiscally responsible and taxpayer-friendly without draining money from essential programs.  They downsized staff in administration and moved special education to in-house facilities.  Award-winning programs will have to run on less money than anticipated in the name of budgetary prudence.  If, after all this, the budget was forced to grow, the taxpayers should be willing to shoulder that burden.  It is merely a component of doing one’s part to support excellence in public education.   Let us never forget the words of Sir Claus Moser: “Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.”  Perhaps when we enter our voting booths we should think not only of the possibilities that can come from every “yes” vote, but we should consider the consequences that can come from every “no” vote.     See Matt Greenfield's Previous Columns Seven Wonders in the Schools (March 2003) Smoking:  Story of Reconciliation  (December 2002) Support The Referendum (October 2002)