OUR OPINION: CORRUPTION CASE Musto’s competency a troubling issue

EDITORIAL CARTOON

First Posted: 5/23/2014 This letter is an urgent appeal to all concerned residents and taxpayers of the Wilkes-Barre Area School District to attend a school board meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Although it is billed as a &#8220;general purposes&#8221; meeting, the most critical item on the agenda will be the adoption of the preliminary budget for the next school year, since the deadline for passing it is May 31.
The board has until June 30 to pass a final spending plan. Since its reorganization in January, this board has done absolutely nothing to stave off the potential for another tax increase, choosing instead to occupy its time with how to spend more money on such &#8220;necessities&#8221; as video surveillance cameras and solicitor Ray Wendolowski&#8217;s outrageous annual pay, $195,000. It has failed once again to make the hard choices of reducing reckless expenditures so that property taxes could be contained or even reduced.
At last May&#8216;s meeting, I vehemently protested the board&#8217;s attempt to pass a preliminary budget with a small yet significant tax increase; the final budget was passed a few weeks later with no increase despite a deficit of about $1.2 million. (I like to think that my presence made a difference.) I labeled that preliminary budget a &#8220;miscarriage of justice,&#8221; since the board sought to extract more money from the already overburdened taxpayers of this district while remaining completely oblivious to the struggles of so many who are barely getting by. Obviously, financial circumstances for many of us have not improved since last year; they have certainly deteriorated.
It is imperative that all those who have a stake in the fiscal decisions of this board not only attend this meeting but raise their collective voice in protest against its reckless, irresponsible decisions. As Thomas Jefferson stated: &#8220;Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.&#8221;
Sam Troy
Wilkes-Barre

Remain wary of tax hike for W-B schools