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by Dan Veaner
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Friday, 23 June 2006 |
Lansing School District voters passed the 2006-2007 budget 706 to 413 Tuesday in a vote that nobody could predict. The $21,366,209 budget was hotly contested by taxpayers who defeated a $21,553,679 version for the first time in 28 years last month. The top issue was high taxes, but conflicting interpretations muddied the debate. Fear and uncertainty about what would be cut if the budget failed motivated some voters to pass the budget. If it had failed a contingency budget would have been required by the State, forcing an additional $378,530 in cuts along with mandated management of school funds.
 District Annual Meeting Chairman Ray Buckley opens the polls at noon on Tuesday
Most voters were unhappy with the budget whether they favored voting for it or not. Resident John Comisi advocated voting for the budget, saying, "We're stuck." He argued that the proposed budget was too high, but the contingency budget was unacceptable. He advocated starting the budget process earlier in the coming year so that the community won't be faced with an unacceptable budget again.
On the other side of the debate David Dubin said, "Taxpayers are facing the assault of higher property assessments, as well as higher tax rates. They are already paying for a water line, while anticipating the additional burden of paying for a new sewer line. Now, presented with an increased school tax proposal, residents are waiting for the BOE to 'drop the other shoe' and present them with a construction bond in December."
While the Board of Education solicited input from the community before agreeing to put the May 20 budget up for a vote, they did not have enough time to thoughtfully incorporate what they learned into the details of the budget. In fact they only had about a day to read and digest the results, which had no effect on what was put forward to the public. Some discounted the survey, saying that it was not a scientific sample of the community. That painted a picture of a Board that pays lip service to representing the community while actually taking their own path. But there was little time to get the input, because of State mandates about when the second vote must take place and what the timetable had to be.
Lansing's difficulty in keeping top administrators certainly contributed to the mess. The district hasn't had consistent leadership in about six years, and the current superintendent has only been here since January. Starting in mid-school year meant he was handed an embryo budget that had been conceived by an interim superintendent and had passed through the hands of two interim business administrators. Superintendent Mark Lewis has promised a more open process for next year that involves the community and all stakeholders earlier in the year.
The next challenge for the district is to get a capital project passed, possibly as soon as December. The Board of Education chose not to put a capital project forward in January that would have cost the district between $32 million and $40 million. A new project is currently in the process of being formulated by a deeply contentious committee made of community members, administrators and teachers. With a withdrawn project and the failed April vote, the Board will have a more difficult challenge on their hands to convince taxpayers to support the initiative.
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