The Budget Myth

"You will have another chance to vote NO to this jump in the tax rate on August 26. We must keep voting "no" until those in charge come to understand the problem: cut spending , do not raise the tax rate. They have to understand that year after year after year SPENDING CANNOT INCREASE."

Mr. DeAngelis just does not get it.  Tom Gormley and the BOF have cut spending by 2.38% on the Town side of the Budget.  That is not a tax increase, but rather a tax cut.  The whopping increase is on the Region 15 side, which has already been passed by the residents of Southbury.  Middlebury residents had voted against it, but were out voted by Southbury.  Don’t blame Tom.  The blame lies with all of us, who just let Region 15 do as they wish, and never examine where the money goes.  Year after year their budget goes up, and year after year we get outvoted by Southbury. 

One of the biggest fallacies in this country is that Americans are not spending enough on education. Americans spend $501.3 billion of taxpayer money on education. It takes four taxpayers to raise enough money to educate one child for one year. Spending more money on education has never made education better. We spend much more money than most countries, yet the United States is ranked 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of its educational system.

After the first school budget went down earlier this year, Region 15 had already had a revised budget in hand.  They planned ahead.  Middlebury should plan ahead as well so we don’t get hit with a huge tax increase again next year. That is where the efforts of Town government should be concentrated.  Start now, and study the school budget.  Find where programs and administrators can be cut.  The public educational bureaucracy is growing by leaps and bounds.  Waiting until next year to do something about it will be too late.

For now residents have to realize that the Town has a smaller budget than it did last year, not a larger one.  If residents do not want to see more cuts in services they actually use, they should make sure they vote YES for the next budget.