By JAMES WALTER
This is an open letter to all Brocton-Portland school taxpayers:
In rebuttal to what some newspaper letters and articles have stated by the school board, here is a copy of the school budget numbers over four years. This was mailed to everyone on May 15.
In 2009-10, the budget was $14.79 million with state aid being $10.18 million. The local amount to be raised was $4.6 million.
In 2012-13, the budget was $14.71 million with state aid being $10.31 million. The local amount to be raised was $4.39 million.
When you take out the state aid, you see the real local amount that the residents are paying in taxes.
For 2010-11, a contingency budget of $14.36 million raised district taxes by 13 percent. That same year, the layoff of nine teachers took $200,000 off of the budget, plus another $200,000 less from the state. That totals a $400,000. But the district still had a tax increase.
For 2011-12, we are paying for teachers who don't exist anymore as the total budget increased $450,000 - to $14.71 million - in one year.
Some other questions taxpayer must ask include:
Why are we paying $900,000 a year for an addition that was paid off four years ago?
Why are we paying $350,000 a year for a bus house that has been paid off for 20 years?
I've been trying for four years to get answers to these questions! Time and again I get shut off. Why?
James Walter is a Portland resident.
