The Following Community Voices article was received from Helen Gabara who is a resident of Berkeley Heights and parent of a child in the District

The PR firm told the BOE during his presentation, that the way to get the public to vote for the referendum is to include “something for everyone.”

That is lousy advice. The temptation would be to think up projects, services and items not necessary.

What piqued my interest was learning that some things that schools put on their referendum list are eligible for grants which they don’t have to pay back. The grants are up to 30% of the cost of the project.

In my opinion, the BOE should put only things they need on 2 separate lists.

One that gets grants, and the other they have to pay by themselves anyway.

For the ones they have to pay full price for, they should dig into their coffers….the accounts that they used to dig into when the budget would not get passed in certain years. If there is not enough money leftover after that for the grant-eligible list, they should put on the referendum those projects that are eligible for grants, and highlight those.

They should show a real need for the referendum items. It would show they are being responsible with our money, transparent, and are willing to pay for things that we really need.

I know there is money lying around. Natasha Joly said at a board meeting last year, before she could vote for the budget, that we should cut off the 2% or so that we don’t use, and save tax payer money, and the administration said, “something might come up and we need a buffer.”

Now that we keep getting the budget raised yearly, I wonder what that buffer has grown to.

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