No means no on property-tax hikes to fund school costs

Another year, another school budget and another property-tax increase to pay for it.

It never ceases to amaze me that someone who is apparently educated to qualify for the job of superintendent of schools, like Dr. Simon Bosco, can't figure out that no means no.

Just which part of this word has you confused? School budgets throughout the state have been rejected in record numbers because "we the people" are no longer going to tolerate property-tax increases to fund schools ... period. School funding has drunk so deeply from the well of property taxes for so long now that this particular well has run dry. There is no more.

The onus of property taxes has broken the backs of the taxpayers. We are now fighting just to hold on to our homes and live out the balance of our years in the places we have lived all of our lives. Property taxes have driven more people from their homes than all natural disasters combined and then some. This stops now.

We, too, have skyrocketing costs to contend with. Gasoline is going through the roof. Mandatory car insurance in New Jersey is still one of the highest in the country. Medical insurance is so ridiculously high that almost no one in the working class, let alone seniors, the disabled or the poor, can afford it. Food, clothing and everything else you can think of is constantly going up. Homeland security has managed to get a few dollars from our bills for other things. I live on Social Security, and my fiancée only gets a 3-percent raise once every three years. We are falling so far behind the increases that when she retires, we too will have to leave New Jersey.

You are going to have to find another way to fund your increased costs. Charge for parking permits for students who want to drive to school. Institute fees for services. Parents need to contribute more for their children's education. Give them the option to contribute more of their own time to supervise student activities or pay fees for their children's participation.

College students pay for their own textbooks - charge supply fees. These kids have more money in their pockets than most adults do. Instead of blowing it all in the malls, make them partners in their own education.

Already doing some of these? Then raise the fees. Not legal? Then make it legal. Get together with the mayors and the other superintendents and go to Trenton and lay it on the line to them. Use that education of yours to find other means of paying for the increases in your budget.

Since money is the universal language at all levels of government, perhaps "we the people" haven't made it plain enough, clear enough or loud enough for you that the gravy train of property taxes is derailed. Tax revolt is the cornerstone upon which this nation was built. Maybe it would be our patriotic duty to speak in the manner of our founding fathers. Is that what it will take for our school systems and our government to realize that "we the people" are dead serious about property-tax increases and that these changes start at the local level?

Is that what it's going to take? I certainly hope not, but I'm inclined to think that it's going to take something that drastic for you to finally understand that enough is enough and that no really means no. Maybe then you will finally realize that we are dead serious about no more property-tax increases and that is the reason that school budgets statewide are being rejected.

Jeffrey Kress

Old Bridge