MEET THE BAUMANN SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS
SCHOOLS
061303 Article did little in the way of informing us about Bedford Central's budget vote
To the Editor:
I have several beefs with the very long article you ran outlining the passage of the school budget in Bedford last week. The article did a good job of repeating a great deal of information from the board's budget presentation and everyone's self-congratulatory encomiums. As your paper has always failed to do after budget votes, however, the piece did little in the way of informing us about the very basic and important facts about the vote.
Some of the unanswered questions might include the following: What percentage of Bedford's registered voters turned out to submit their ballot? How does the total nuMber of votes cast relate to the total number of Bedford residents who have children in the schools, work for the schools, or run businesses that make substantial revenue from the school system? How did the turnout compare to the turnout for recent November general elections? How does Bedford's per-student spending stack up against the rest of the nation, not just Westchester County?
In many communities throughout the country, the contracting economy has led to severe questioning of ever-ballooning school budgets.
Some have asked why the budget vote is not included on the November ballot, when every resident is provided ample, legally mandated opportunity to vote on a host of important issues and races, rather than held in the middle of a busy work week in May? As the voting is done at the schools themselves, doesn't this make it far easier for those coming to the campuses anyway to vote, tipping the scales?
The important questions about any election are how fair was the vote, who actually voted and what the outcome means for the community. Without this context, it is too easy to assume that the annual vote in Bedford consists largely of those who benefit directly from the district's spending (as far as I can tell from simple research the highest perstudent outlay of tax dollars by any district in the nation or perhaps the civilized world) going to the polls to rubber stamp another increase at triple or quadruple the rate of inflation while a few wild-eyed, tax-ravaged diehards at the fringes fight the tide. Sadly, your report once again does nothing to dispel this notion.