06.18.2008 | 9:51 pm | General Life, Local Government, North Reading
So the Selectman decide to increase the trash fee by $46 per year or a little over 25%. Yet they will limit the number of trash bags that a household can put out. Why is it with the government policies that we pay more yet we get less? Personally it is not a lot of money but it that really the point. For some, it may matter but on principle I would love occasionally to hear - “We found an opportunity for efficiency so we will be decreasing your fees.” Do we every hear that at all? And to be fair, this is not a North Reading specific issue but a government issue and mentality. Always ask for more but never over delivery until there is tremendous pressure to do so.
It would be great if our local governments was like technology. Dropping prices but better performance. Not a perfect analogy but one can dream!
Comments (0)
03.26.2008 | 7:38 am | Local Government, Schools
Looks there is a bit of good news on the budget front. The actual increase for health insurance for the town was only 2.5% compared to the 15% that was budgeted. Most of the money will be allocated to the school so the override of 2 1/2 only needs to be $800k.
BTW only one selectman voted against giving the additional allocated money to the schools -Phil Dardeno, who is up for re-election this year by the way.
The vote for the override will on be on April 7th 7 PM so get out and vote - a 2/3 must vote yes for the override. And if you need babysitting service, NRUE will have be sponsoring a babysitting service for you! Just drop by the High School from 6:40pm on.
Comments (0)
03.15.2008 | 3:34 pm | Local Government
There is an interesting article from Boston.com written a few days ago but its failing school system:
A community once celebrated as having some of the best schools in the state now has schools rated among the worst. Amid an escalating financial crisis in recent years, 68 teachers have been laid off, two elementary schools have closed, and about half the classes at the high school have been cut. There are no more elementary school librarians. Most of the school buses are gone, as are freshmen and junior varsity sports.
While I don’t think this is the future for North Reading, it is a pretty dramatic potential future for those towns that do NOT invest in their public school systems.
Comments (0)
03.4.2008 | 4:43 pm | Local Government, Schools
If you go to this government site, you can get a real nice snapshot of the key metrics of how the NR School system is doing. How are they spending the money and how the NR school system fares versus the stat average.
Here are some interesting items given the current future vote to get an override to fund the added needs for the public school system:
- The average spend per pupil for North Reading is $8,429 in 2006 versus a state average of $11,210 or 26% lower.
- The Student/Teacher Ratio for 2006/2007 in NR was 15.5 to 1 versus a state average of 13.2 to1.
- The graduation rate was a nice 93.6% versus the state average 80.9% (2006/2007 school year).
As I mentioned in a previous post, money invested in the school systems is to me a no-brainer as long as the MCAS / school rankings go up along with the investment.
Comments (0)
03.2.2008 | 2:13 pm | Local Government, State Government
I want to praise House Minority Leader Brad Jones of North Reading for his opposition of the 1 billion life sciences bill. Why does the government need to help out an private sector that is “growing by leaps and bounds” as State Rep. Dan Bosley (D-North Adams points out?
Shouldn’t this money be poured a back in to much need currently run public systems like um the public school systems? Most towns have to go through hard tax overrides to get the “basics” like I wrote about here. Sometimes I just don’t get it really.
We can only hope the Senate has more sense.
Comments (0)
« Previous Entries