To the editor:
I never thought I would ever find myself in the position of voting against an MW school budget-but that did come to pass this year. The reason was the lack of transparency in the budget presentation. An increase of 36% in transportation costs needs to be explained in more detail. Especially since the category of “contract transportation” is up at an unsustainable rate: sequentially 36%, 48% and 75% over the last three budgets. This year there was COVID money to somewhat mask the increase but an honest discussion of the impact of that permanent (and presumably still growing) expense needs to be reckoned with. The school district owes residents a projection of the impact of these future costs and what attempts are being made to mitigate them. Not doing so seems to violate their commitment to transparency. I look forward to seeing a full accounting in this pages over the next few weeks.
Allen Gross
Monroe