PHOTOS: School District State Monitor Gives Presentation Ahead of Referendum; Busing Expected to End Feb. 23 [UPDATED]

State Monitor Presentation 1School District State Monitor David Shafter this evening gave a presentation explaining the district’s deficits and financial status.

The presentation by the monitor was intended to explain the district’s troubles that caused the approximately $9,500,000 deficit, and why the referendum later this month is necessary.

See the attached photos for the financial date.

The presentation was supposed to take place in conjunction with a Board meeting, but the meeting was cancelled last minute when it was learned the Board Members intended not to show up after being denied the documents several days before the meeting, sources said.

As earlier reported, approximately 10,000 public and non-public students will be losing busing come the end of January, should the referendum fail.

The referendum will take place on January 26.

UPDATE: The Monitor announced that should the referendum fail, the courtesy busing will end on February 23, and only mandated busing will continue on February 25. On February 19, parents will be notified if they qualify for mandated busing.

The resolution to end the busing was first announced in November, as first reported by TLS.

“The Board of Education calls for a special election of the legal voters of the Lakewood School District on January 26, 2016 for the purpose of raising additional taxes for the 2015-16 budget and authorizes administration to notify the board of elections of its intent to do so,” the resolution stated. “These taxes will be used exclusively for non-mandated transportation services.”

Approval of these taxes will result in a permanent increase in the district’s tax levy.

As earlier reported, the Board unanimously rejected the resolution, but it was overridden by the State Monitor.

[TLS]

KPICASA_GALLERY(StateMonitorPresentation#)

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18 COMMENTS

  1. This whole presentation is meant to throw the private schools under the bus. The State Monitors (3 of them) are scared to make the changes needed in district (Superintendent and Co.) and instead make a scapegoat out of the non-public. The Monitors have made numerous mistakes in the last year that have cost the district HUGE amounts of money and losses.

  2. Maybe if we all got together as the majority tax payers and stopped paying property taxes they would finally realize who pays for all the schooling they should be thanking us not penalizing us

  3. To # 1 –

    I will point out that the monitors actual plan is to throw all the private school children into a frozen lake. They can’t throw the children *under* the bus when their whole plan is to remove the very bus which would otherwise be used for necessary transport.

  4. I will point out that the Monitor’s actual plan is to throw all the private school children into a frozen lake. They can’t throw the children *under* the bus when their whole plan is to remove the very bus which would otherwise be used for necessary transport.

  5. If you don’t pay your property taxes, you will lose your house. I will gladly buy it from the Township at a reduced price.
    Please don’t pay your property taxes.

  6. Even if we were to vote for a tax increase for this year by next year they will turn around and tell us that they have too save money and they want to mix the girls with the boys. So they will get the tax money and they will be back to blackmailing us that if we don’t raise taxes we won’t get bussing

  7. What happened to the most popular guy on TLS the past two years; Mr. Michael Azzara???? Is there a new monitor? Maybe they found a cheaper one and are cutting costs across the board? 🙂

  8. This is misleading. What it means to show is that approximately $50 million is used to fund private schools whereas about $100 million is used to fund public schools.

    Even at those rates, it is a bargain as the public school only educate about 5,000 students, whereas the private schools have about 24k students.

    The reality is, the disparity is even larger. The federal funds are earmarked for specific programs. Subtract the federal funding, and the private schools get around $24 million in funding and the public schools are getting over $100 million for 5,000 students, this amounts to $20k per student for the public schools and about $1K for private school students (special ed is cost averaged in)

    Additionally this showed that courtesy busing is actually servicing 1000 LESS students then it did 3 years ago, yet we are led to believe that courtesy busing is what is causing the funding shortage.

    Kudos to the board for not showing up. Due to the tyranical rule of the State Monitors, the board no longer serve any purpose until the monitors are gone. This is absurd, we are being taxed without any democratic representation.

    What about the non-mandated pre-k that the district provides, it is costing the district close to $4million a year, and services relatively few students, yet no one has mentioned cutting this service as opposed to courtesy busing.

  9. Over 10,000 students affected by the loss of revenue, and only a handful of people at the special meeting. Not even the BOE members could attend to represent the public interest.

  10. Cut all funding close down public schools except for the 1 which sutely can accommodate the few legals we have here, cut our taxes 50% and all private schools should hire private bussing and raise it fromantic tje paren’t body it will be much less than 50% of our taxes.

    Problem solved

Comments are closed.