Friday, April 29, 2011

Kingston School Taxpayers - Vote NO on the School Budget on Tues.May 17th

To all local taxpayers, a 4.9% tax increase is too much.  Any tax increase is too much.  Remember, if we increase school taxes 5% every year, in 10 years, our tax bills would have gone up 50%.  To bring jobs to Ulster County, we need tax decreases or at least Zero Tax increase.  It is very important for the taxpayers to send a message on Tuesday, May 17 by voting NO on the Kingston School Budget.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

If we vote no, as far as I know the Austerity Budget is higher. This is the same thing as last year. You have no choice then to vote yes

Ralph Mitchell said...

To 10:41am,

There is a rule that says the austerity budget cannot be higher than the budget rejected by the voters. See the April 13, 2011 Freeman article by Kyle Wind, where it states,

"School districts, however, are not allowed to increase spending from what was proposed if they do operate under an austerity budget."

Anonymous said...

Didn't see your name on the list of candidates for school board. Get into the game and stop the whining. You could make a difference.

Anonymous said...

Ok so if we yes we get a 4.9% increase and if we vote no we get a 4.9% increase. So what's the difference. Other than an Austerity Budget keeps contract services (aka staff numbers) and eliminates any programs and maintenance. So it would seem that voting yes and taking the 22.5 eliminated positions would be better than the alternative.

The Superintendent has the tax payers against the wall on this one. There is no win for a tax payer and the Board isn't going to do anything about it, and since I didn't see you name on the ballot that is one less chance of having a voice of change.

Anonymous said...

Kyle is wrong . The tax increase under an austerity budget is significantly higher than would be under the budget proposed by the district. Vote no and you are volnteering to pay more in taxes.

It is that simple.

Ralph Mitchell said...

To 8:08pm,
After checking with Kyle Wind at the Freeman again, I learned that the austerity budget would produce a lower tax rate not a higher tax rate as you said.

Anonymous said...

What makes you think that Kyle has any idea what he is talking about?
Is he suddenly an authority on these issues?
He is a marginally competent reporter for a marginally competent local newspaper.
Come on.
Go ahead, vote down the budget and see your taxes increase even more.

Anonymous said...

" ... therefore, the contingency budget adopted by the Board of Education would always be less than the proposed budget."

- New York State Education Department

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/mgtserv/budgeting/contingency.html

Maybe Kyle knew what he was talking about after all.

Anonymous said...

Why even vote - it doesn't matter. Kingston had two austerity budgets in recent years but no sports, art or music were cut?