Cut to school budget won't make difference

What do you get when you cross a 900-pound gorilla, called the Edison Board of Education, with an all-Democrat Edison Township Council up for re-election? You get zilch - nada - nothing. At least that's the benefit accruing to the taxpayers as a result of the council's $1.7 million cut to the voter-rejected School District's $186.7 million budget for 2007-08.

You remember how it works from last year's $181.3 million budget, when the residents voted that down and the council cut a whopping $1.5 million or about 1 tax point. The budget goes over to the council to see what cuts, if any, can be made. The council asks pedantic questions and the board swears you couldn't cut a penny, and that's a literal penny, from the budget and yada, yada, yada.

Now, in order to truly appreciate how insignificant these council cuts tend to be and who really benefits, you need to know a tad bit about the mechanics of the school budget itself. The proposed spending plan is $186.7 million and, after state and other aid, the local taxes sought from us are $164.7 million or an increase of $6.2 million. Now, because they have to adjust from a fiscal to a calendar year for purpose of striking the tax rate, only one-half of the local taxes sought from us goes into this year's rate. The other half goes into next year's rate. Similarly, any council cuts made will also be halved.

Next, there's this little rounding game that gets played with the tax rate itself, which is similar to that Bank of America - keep the change program. You know, they round up to the next dollar and put it in a savings account for you. Well, we do the same thing except the township keeps the change.

So with that in mind, let's see what happens to this year's $1.7 million in council cuts. The council received a budget with an increase over last year of $6.2 million or 7.3 tax points. The council cut $1.7 million or 1.1 tax points, and that reduced the rate to 6.2 tax points. Now, since tax rates are set in whole points, that 6.2 gets rounded up to 7.0 tax points. The town keeps the difference of .8 tax points and the net effect to the taxpayer of a 1.1-point tax cut is only .3 of 1 tax point. Simply stated, the increase of 7.3 tax points is only reduced to 7.0 tax points for us, the taxpayers.

So, who really benefits from what Edison's Council and Board of Education just did with that $186.7 million budget? Well, here's what everyone got this year - and you decide. The school got to keep $185 million or a whopping 99.1 percent of their budget, the town picks up some $500,000 plus in the rounding game and we, the taxpayers get a humongous reduction in our taxes of about $280,000. Yeah, that's right! And you thought $1.7 million really meant $1.7 million in Edison?

But hey, at least we're comforted in the knowledge that Edison is a place where one hand of government washes the other and both hands pick the pockets of the residents.

Ralph Bucci

Edison