It's budget vote day in the Batavia City School District.
Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 9 p.m.
Besides the proposed 2015-16 budget, residents are asked to vote on establishing a capital reserve fund, a mileage change in transportation, and three board of education seats.
A summary of the public proposal is available on the district Web site, as well as all the budget documents.
If you live north of Route 5/Main Street, vote at Robert Morris. If you live south of Route 5/Main Street, vote at Batavia High School.
Please vote yes on your local
Please vote yes on your local school budget today. There are rare circumstances where one should vote no, and that typically comes from major administrative raises amidst cuts to educational programs and services, but defeating a district budget can only resort in a contingency budget where tax rates need to be raised even higher and what works ends up on the chopping block. If you don't like the way the district is being run and feel as if it's corrupt, run for school board or vote for challenger candidates over incumbents, but don't punish the kids. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face, the politicians who voted for the budget will remain on the board, focus on them instead.
People should vote yes for
People should vote yes for their local school budget only if they accept the increases in the spending for the following year. If they don't accept those increases they will vote it down. Voting no for a school budget is not a rare circumstance at all. It does happen, and it should be said that if a budget is voted down by district residents, the district does have a second chance at changing the budget request and putting it back up for a district vote before by June 21st, or going to a contingency budget, which can not exceed 4% over the previous years budget.
If you want to push for a school budget's passage, it might be better for you to tell people what about the budget plan makes it worthy of being passed.