Hmm RC, Let’s not start comparing bus expenses from different years, shall we? We don’t know what happened to the price of buses from year to year or if they had the same features. I mean, if what you are saying is true I’d have a choice of paying $1500 today for a new TV or $400 for the next three years. Less money and I get to finance, why would anyone every buy outright! Sounds too good to be true and I want a free lunch too!
Let’s take a look at what happened this year, same bus features, same year, etc. I don’t have the figures in front of me so forgive me if I get something wrong. So our original budget the bus was $75,000 (less than your 07/08 bus figure, is something fishy there?). So instead we shaved $48,000 off the budget by going into a three year lease. So let’s see $75,000 – $48,000 (the savings we get this year for leasing) gives a per year cost of $27,000 for the lease. Three years that makes it $27,000 X 3 or $81,000. Now that’s a leasing company that’s going to say in business, its almost as if (gasp) they want to make some money for financing the purchase.
BTW, any increase in the budget due to transportation increases does not go solely to the BOE in subsequent years, the town gets a slice of that pie too. A bad thing if those expenses stay around year over year. Not a good design.
As far as your statement, “Actually only $2,000 will be cut as the BOE is not LOSING anything with the $48,000 portion of the cut/reduction. They will still get those buses. It’s a beautiful thing.” … are you kidding me? You realize that we will have to continue paying for those buses over the next few years, don’t you? Money that would have been available to us otherwise. So we have traded keeping things in the budget this year with doing less in the next few years.
So it looks like we might not be getting the Smartboards like the Woodstock Academy has then either. I’m betting that we will still have to replace some more buses next year. The difference between next year and this is we will then have to pay an additional $27,000 from this year’s bus before we can even look at replacing those. $27,000 less services we can give the town next year and the year after that. So don’t fool yourself into thinking we aren’t loosing anything.
What leasing does do is make it more likely that our transportation costs next year will be higher than they are this year. Isn’t that what you want to prevent? Yes there are years and budget seasons beyond this one.
Kevin
This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way
Kevin, I admire your perseverance, but I think you are wasting your time on RC and Ernie. This type of flawed personality never learns anything. It is more important for them to be right than to stand corrected and learn something. They aren’t defending a logical point, they are protecting themselves. Very sad- for others who have to deal with them.
RC, reagrding your comment that all businesses lease instead of buy, that is principally done for tax purposes. Businesses try to avoid “owning” things so they do not get taxed on them as assets. That is why we do it. For more details, you’d have to ask our CFO.
Mordred,
I’m more posting for the lurkers who may be reading so they can see that the “emperor” has no clothes.
Kevin
This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way
CPS suggestions, via Schutlze, are never studies or cost comparisons of any kind. The most consistency that anyone will get from a Schultze suggestion,, is the repeated suggestion itself, sort of like “the sky is blue”….”no….your wrong ….it’s pink…now look at me everybody, ’cause I said it,…ME.”
I have been reading this blog for a long time, and have often been puzzled by all of these anti- education type entries/people. I guess the old adage is true, “it takes all kinds”. For instance, just when I thought society was in unison about the horrors of Adolph Hitler, someone comes along to argue even THAT point. See the website http://www.adolph the great.com
There seem to be many valid points on both sides. It appears to me that only time will tell on the bus issue and that the cost/savings will only be able to be seen in the rear view bus mirrors. In three years the same question will probably hold the answer. “Look at the cost now! We should have (insert one bought or leased)”. Personally, I’d buy the busses. When the price of a pack of gum is going up because of fuel costs I’d imagine a bus is going to cost a little more. Which brings me to fuel? The question I have is about the fuel. Like the airlines, imagine if you could have hedged the fuel price for the busses for the next three years..three years ago. Perhaps you did. You may have saved enough for…a bus. Whose negotiating the fuel for all the buses?
Several points about the bus leases.
1. These are not really leases, but installment purchase plans with a financing cost. This is a viable solution for Woodstock because it evens out the repolacement cost for the buses over time. I am happy defer to the BOE year to year to make the most cost effective decisions.
2. Businesses, independent contractors, sole proprietors and consultants lease vehicles because they write off the cost as an operating expense for tax purposes. Public agencies have no such incentive.
3. The CPS comments re the leases are always posed as an accusation, and never supported. These people do not have the intelligence or any real interest to get beyond their superficial and conspiratorial agenda which is designed to keep the BOE on the defensive by subjecting it to a punishing regimen of false allegations of waste, fraud and abuse.
4. The Academy’s support for this, ranging from tacit to proactive, is not only despicable, but is a clear violation of their own charter.
Orson,
1. Yes. The lease purchase label is something given by the BOE but it is as I said before a way to finance long term. Viable solution. You may be happy deferring to the BOE to ‘make cost effective decisions’. Others are not and we would simply like these issues to be looked at more closely.
2. Other benefits to taxpayers are provided by the long term financing. Namely no major expenditure in annual education budgets that simply continually add to the increase of the base budget.
3. As I’ve said before, I am not a member of CPS (though none of you seem to care about that). Why must you and your friends always accuse anyone who questions anything involving the education budget?
4. How exactly is WA supporting my questions? Or anyone else’s for that matter. Again with the propaganda. One must really wonder what WA did to tick you off so badly. Your posts reek of such animosity it is most painful to see.
RC – Your own animus is evident to anyone who has read your diatribes here. The bus lease/purchase issue has been well-worn standard fare for the CPS conspiracy clowns for many years. So you are associated with CPS because you have taken their meaningless non-issue as your own.
Your/CPS’s allegations about waste, fraud and abuse in the bus purchase decisions is strikingly similar to the months-long tirade by Lisa Rapose over the computer purchases. Without having any idea what she was talking about – or ever mentioning the three basic technical capacities (Memory/Speed/Hard Drive) every high school kid knows – Lisa Rapose cross examined the BOE for months before acknowledging the obvious – that she was wrong. In fact, the BOE had gone to great lengths to stretch every nickel to get the most for the least. Instead of acknowledging this, and apologizing for her indecent behavior, Lisa Rapose blamed the whole mis-investigation on the BOE, who after months of attempting to explain the obvious to Dense Lisa, and while enduring her ongoing public vitriole, was then accused of having caused their own torment by “covering up” the details of this purchase.
Bus leases . . . computer purchases . . . insurance accounts . . . teachers aides . . . missing cafeteria funds . . . its always the same – mindless accusations heaped on the BOE with never, ever any scintilla of evidence. So what really associates you with the deranged CPS crowd is the unceasing energy you seem willing to devote – to nothing. Nothing except the pathological hatred you all share for this town’s beleaguered Board of Education.
What WA has done that is wrong is to engage these sick individuals in a small town political and public relations campaign that violates its own chartered mission which is to provide public education services to the children of this town. That’s what.
I would ask you in response what it is that the BOE did to tick you off so much, but I know you will just make up the answer in the form of another accusation. You and CPS.
Its like living in Salem, Massachussetts in the 17th century.
Hey Reality Check, you old chatterbox! You never answered Kevin’s question way back under the headline “Woodstock Fire Department Activity”: (Kevin E. Ford says:
April 18th, 2008 at 8:16 am
RC,
You stated, “Funny how those of you who criticize $500,000 for the health and welfare of our ENTIRE community and yet you don’t even blink an eye at $600,000 to almost $1,000,000 INCREASES in annual education budgets. Wild.”
Are you really of the opinion that education is not working for the welfare for our entire community? I sure hope that’s not what you are trying to say because if it is, it is certainly an interesting insight into your thought process.)
So Reality Check, are you really of the opinion that education is not working for the welfare of our entire community?
Chicklet,
It is impossible to legitimately respond to such a question. That you have reiterated it is of no surprise.
What is the expression that your posse likes to use so much? That’s right. ‘Apples and oranges’.
A good school system is a significant component of a community. Yes. But to say that every member of our community receives direct benefit from it defies rational thought.
Keep on doing what you do. It reassures me that the planets are in alignment. Reasonable or rational discussion from you or your ‘boyfriend’ would likely throw us off our axis.
“Your Boyfriend”? This is your response? What are we in high school? Its a simple question RC.
It appears from your original statement that you believe fire department expenditures represent benefits to the entire community, while K-8 education expenditures do not. When asked to clarify this, you further state that K-8 educational expenditures do not benefit every single person in town. But neither do fire department expenditures. Or Academy expenditures. In fact, if we only funded public services that benefited every single person in town, we would not fund ANY public services – at ANY level of government.
So what is the distinction you are trying to make? Its a simple question – and I don’t have any boyfriends – so why don’t you answer the question?
Orson,
You just can’t help yourself can you? I understand.
Check out Chicklet’s name on her post. Perhaps that will simplify things a bit for you. You might look to see who I am addressing before you write your posts.
Asked and answered. Emergency services and the protection offered by these services are a direct benefit to every member of our town. It’s like insurance. There when you need it.
RC,
I’d argue that education is an essential part of the foundation of our nation’s high standard of living. I can’t think of too many things that offer much more benefit to the entire community than our the standard of living enjoyed by all of our town’s citizens. I’ve been to some poorer nations and seen what a lack of education can yield in term’s of poverty, poor health and opportunity.
Our high standard of living makes so much possible for us including our ability to fund the Fire Department. Understanding the larger framework in which the success of our society is based goes a long way to making good long range goals and decisions.
The problem with things like education is it’s harder to conceptualize the benefit. If you stop funding the fire department completely you will know what was lost in a matter of months. If you stop funding education completely it will take a decade or two to really understand what was lost. Underfunding education, much harder to see and longer to realize but eventually the effects will be felt by everyone.
Kevin
This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way.
SurReality –
You no longer have to wonder why you are asociated with CPS. It is because you have adopted their positions, hook, line and sinker, including the view that the Academy and Fire Department are worthy of taxpayer support, but the K-8 pubic school system somehow is not. So instead of engaging in namecalling, in the manner that a child conducts an argument, how about answering the question?
Why are the Fire Department and Academy worthy of your support as legitimate public services, but the K-8 public schools are not? Put another way, why do you tirelessly target the K-8 public schools with false allegations of financial mismanagement, but leap to the defense of the Academy and Fire Department whenever their extravagances are questioned?
The answer is simple – you are flagrantly dishonest hypocrite lacking in any intelligence, objectivity or conscience whatsoever. CPS – The Next Generation.
Kevin,
Yikes. You don’t need the soapbox. I already know about the bigger picture.
Orson,
Namecalling? Who exactly am I supposed to have done that to?
Oh. Apparently, you still haven’t noticed that Chicklet is Chuckles’ Girlfriend. Which would make Chuckles Chicklet’s Boyfriend. Difficult concept for you?
You can stomp your feet and pound your chest all you like. It is my right to question that which I find questionable. If you could possibly provide a reasonable argument then perhaps we could have a legitimate discussion.
Problem is that YOU never wish to do so. If you can’t respond with FACTS, you simply attack with innuendo and insults.
Flagrantly dishonest hypocrite lacking in any intelligence, objectivity or conscience whatsoever? And you accuse me of ‘namecalling’? Oh my. Devastated. I’m just devastated.
RC,
Hey I guess I’m a politician now, soapboxes are what we do!
Kevin
This post represents my personal opinions and in no way should be considered an official act of the BOE or that I am speaking on behalf of the BOE in any way.
Reality Check –
With all that, you forgot to answer the question! Let me remind you:
“Why are the Fire Department and Academy worthy of your support as legitimate public services, but the K-8 public schools are not? Put another way, why do you tirelessly target the K-8 public schools with false allegations of financial mismanagement, but leap to the defense of the Academy and Fire Department whenever their extravagances are questioned?”
Come on RC – have a heart – answer the question!