"The total budget amount is increased .81 percent from last year's budget, the lowest budget increase in the past eight years according to the district's Business Administrator James Tevis."

Mr. James Tevis lied to the public, plain and simple. I pointed it out on the meeting but the Board prefers to stick to their lies. The budget has, in fact, been increased by 4.7%, definitely NOT a small bump. What grew by 0.81% was the taxpayers' levy, which does not account for larger-than-anticipated state aid (thank you, Gov. Christie), huge health insurance savings that weren't spent on turf, and lower enrollment. Neither of these will likely materialize next budget year - and the taxpayers will be eventually asked to cough up extra funds for programs that the Board throws in today just because they can. It's for the children, right? One of the Board members has admitted privately that they are adding "fat" to the budget this year so they have things to trim later. The idea of leaving the money in taxpayers' pocket has apparently never crossed their minds! And why should they care? School budgets don't have to pass the voters' scrutiny anymore.

Look at the bigger picture. The policy of making Montville an attractive place due to its school district could have been a good idea for a while but it turned into a ticking bomb. People are not as bound to their childhood places as they used to be a few decades earlier. Empty-nesters, baby-boomers, and singles move out in droves fleeing high taxes, and new families that move in further increase the shared school tax burden. Nothing short of taxpayers' revolt will stop this circle.

What ever became of all that money that was not spent on turfing the high school field?

Good job expanding the Foreign Language program to include the elementary school. What ever happened though to the plans to extend full-years of foreign language to students in the middle school, instead of the one-quarter system in sixth and seventh grade and optional full-year system in eighth grade? Foreign language was the one subject that I felt my Montville education completely failed to prepare me for in college, and increasing the availability of full-year language courses at the middle school would definitely help improve our program at the high school.

My only other concern is that while I feel parking passes at $75 are too high, parking passes of $10 seem far too low. There are numerous costs associated with having a student parking lot, including construction costs, snow removal and stipending a teacher as a lot attendant to make sure nobody leaves during the school day. Despite these large costs, a very limited amount of students get to enjoy the privileges of this lot--only the senior students with cars. Subsidizing the cost of their parking so much seems unfair to the other students. Furthermore, parking at school is a privilege, not a right. When students get to college and in the real world, they're going to have to face much higher parking costs. If you look at the Benzes and BMWs in the senior lot, you know that financial concern isn't an issue for many student drivers, but obviously a discount can be worked out for those who need it.

(continuation of last post)

In short, I feel that subsidizing the cost by $65 is far too much. I'd say a $30 or $40 parking fee would probably be manageable to most students, reflect the extra service they get by using the lot, and bring in a bit more revenue. Again, there would be a measure in place if students have some kind of financial difficulty or concern. In my experience, the school's been very generous with that sort of measures in special cases.