The School Board is holding a public hearing for their 2021-22 budget TONIGHT (8/24) 7pm. Excepts of letter sent to School Board by a founding BRG member:

“Another Great budget with lots of specificity and clarity.  Another KUDOs to everyone involved.

One page 6, I assume the predicted inflation for the next year of around 6 % accounts for the expenditure increases below?

l  Expenditures (Sections B-6 and B-7)

l  Expenditures +9.4% to $102.8 M (excluding on-behalf contributions)

l  Salaries +5.4%, $48.6 M

l  Employee benefits +5.1%, $13.1 M

General contingency of $0.5 M….

Although it lists staffing ratio as unchanged, in the very next section it shows a change from 7.6 to 7.9?     ????

Please don’t issue any more Bonds, it’s nice the bond debt is going down.   (7.6 % is debt service now)

Looks like Benefits, 26.6 %, is catching up as a percentage to Salaries, 40.9 %   Any discussion of why the high ratio of Benefits to Salaries???

Having said that, I’m pleased to see Administration costs are being held at 0.3 percent, well below predicted inflation for the next 12 months.  Also, I recognize Admin works year round and whatever the salaries are, including Lisa, Anton, and many others, taxpayers are getting their benefit for the buck.

Pupil transportation is going up because we didn’t run as many buses during COVID?

I see my favorite, BFAC, is going up 188%, even considering last year COVID, we’ll never agree on BFAC budget, having said that, I’d like to see more “Pay as you go” programs with less taxpayer support.

And I LIKE all the pie charts and bar graphs, as well as the numbers, not too fancy, but good visual presentation of information.”