By Kandi-Lee Hoy

South Portland resident

Well, once again our city council and school board want to squeeze more money out of us.

We all know that certain, necessary items have gotten more expensive. Oil speculators, numerous blends and new diesel regulations have driven up the cost of oil and fuel. Food has gone up along with a hand full of other things.

The vast majority of people are not getting any kind of raise or cost of living increase to cover the higher costs. We simply have to make adjustments. Shouldn’t the city and the schools have to do the same?

The city council has said they are not done with the budget. They said at the last public meeting that they are looking at more ways to cut back. (Maybe they could reconsider spending three years’ savings on new tennis courts for Skillin.) 

I didn’t hear anything close to that from the school board.

The school budget will be going up before we, the people for a vote.

Let’s look at this like a business.

If you have a division or an employee who consistently misses their end goals by a rate of over 20 percent and also fails to meet expectations of a set of standards by 50 percent, would you give them a raise or a sweet, new contract? Not hardly.

Those are the numbers at the high school.

There is only an 80 percent graduation rate. That means a 20 percent failure rate to graduate students and that does not count those who drop out or graduate late.

Test standards are met or exceeded by only 50 percent of the students. That means 50 percent do not even meet the standards put forth by the school departments.

I won’t get into the numbers of students who end up having to take remedial classes after they get to college.

Why then, are contracts being signed and approved by the city and school board that contain automatic raises? What motivation is there to do a better job? None if you know you’ll be getting a raise for simply showing up.

Neither the city nor the school board should be giving out contracts that include automatic raises.

Creativity in budgeting and most likely some unpopular decisions need to be made.

For instance do away with elementary school guidance counselors. That alone would save about $300,000 according to the budget proposal. 

Combine classes that can be redundant or that easily work together. Phys. ed., health, and real life could easily be combined into one class. 

Put a freeze on wage increases. A large part of the spending increases seem to be caused by raises. Some of them rather large.

Have the employees pay into their health insurance and benefits like the rest of the non-government workers. Re-write contracts so that raises are not based on how much time one has put in. Base raises on performance the way the business world does.

In the school department, that would reward the good teachers and would encourage the desire to achieve. 

In other words, be willing to be creative and to have a strong spine.

My property taxes have already gone up over $600 and now they want more.

Our paychecks do not go up simply because the city and the schools want more money. Where do they think we’re going to get it?

Vote “No” on the school budget as it stands now. Let’s require more accountability and high quality for our money.