Below is the data reported by the county’s school districts to the state Education Department for their annual Property Tax Report Cards.
The information reflects the budgets that have been approved by Boards of Education and sent to the voters for approval or defeat on May 18.
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I looked on the NYS website and ranked all of the data.
Oswego City’s school budget growth of 8.78% is ranked 7th out of 656 school districts in the state. On average, the statewide budget growth is only 1.06%.
Oswego faced the same budget problems that all school districts faced, but was completely incapable of dealing with it in a responsible way.
Our budget growth is nearly 9 times higher than the average school district. That is inexcusable.
I urge all residents of Oswego to vote “no” on May 18. Enough is enough.
Aside from Mr. Hoefer, Mr. Tripp and Mr. Dunsmoor, the entire board and administration of the OCSD should be removed from their positions for their unwillingness to deal with budget problems.
Almost all other districts made the hard decisions, but the OCSD did nothing. Why could they not do what 99% of the school districts in the state could do in keeping budget growth UNDER 8.78%?
The OCSD board majority & administration is a disgrace on every level.
Just a quick note to apologize for the hard-to-see data.
We’re working on creating a better template to show the data.
For those who view the site in the Firefox browser, the data looks better on Internet Explorer.
-Dave Bullard
Central Square educates almost 500 more students than does Oswego.
Central Square does so with a budget almost 10 million dollars less than Oswego.
Central Square is more successful in educating its students as test results show.
Central Square is meeting its 1.1% enrollment drop with a 0.73% budget drop.
Oswego is meeting its 2.67% enrollment drop with a 8.78% budget INCREASE.
Something is completely wrong with this picture.
I’ll be voting no this May 18.
The administration had a proposal to repurpose Leighton and have more staff reductions than are currently budgeted. The board approved that and then one week later voted to rescind that decision. Which board members voted to rescind that decision?
Herb,
I believe Dave White was the only “no” vote to rescind the earlier decision. All of the other board members voted yes. The minutes of that meeting are not posted yet, so I’m not 100% positive.
Interested,
That’s what I thought but I was not sure either. The video of that vote is on the oswego.org website. You were correct, in your recollection. Everyone but Mr. White was very supportive of option 3. Mr. Hoefer praised the option and said it was what he was demanding from the board all year. When the numbers came through and they voted on the approval of the budget on April 13th the comments turned to “This is disgraceful, this makes me sick!” What happened?