The Paris School District annual meeting was set up in anticipation of a much larger crowd than less than 20 that attended. Last year’s attendance was around 75.
Residents followed by the School Board passed a tax levy at uneventful annual and board meetings for the Paris School District Monday evening.
The last three years have seen contentious annual meetings at Paris School with large turnout and close votes. Tonight was different with much smaller attendance and almost no discussion of the levy. Last year, 78 residents voted on the levy at the annual meeting. This year, 18 residents did.
This year’s levy was $1,881,412, a decrease of about 6.14 percent from the 2011-12 audited figure of $2,004,449.
The levy passed at the annual meeting 15 to 3.
At the School Board meeting immediately following, the levy vote was much tighter, since two of the three residents who had voted against the levy are on the school board. The board vote was 3 to 2 with Mike Cavalenes and Joan Hancock voting against.
What did we know that no one else did? Who corrected all the budget mistakes passed at this meeting? Not the three that voted for the levy or the administrator.
Board members can miss meetings and still get paid. Would you get paid if you missed work?
Residents can fall into the complacency that everything is alright. No is paying attention.
Residents can fall into the complacency that everything is alright. No one is paying attention.
Why did the levy decrease when total enrollment increased?
I just wonder how many people will attend the town’s budget hearing! So many people complain about the school’s spending, but never about the town. Well, this year maybe it’ll be different – remember, the town isn’t paying all of our taxes.
Mike, residents fell into the complacency that everything is alright a long time ago. Everyone has been and is still paying attention to the school. No one is paying attention to the three that are holding over 20 million dollars in hand.
I agree. The Town meeting should be packed full but unfortunately it won’t be. At least two of the three must be voted out. Bring Paris into the 21st century.
If that is the way you feel then get organized and do something about it. No use sitting on the sidelines. Do expect someone else to do it for you.
I was the only resident in the audience tonight. I thought all the town officials were well prepared and did a great job tonight. They did a much better job than school board officials. I don’t know what your beef is.
The board wasn’t prepared NW Mike – they are just very good at baffling. In the past when residents show up, they are ignored. Remember, last night was the budget workshop- they didn’t have to answer questions. The real test will be at the real budget meeting, then we’ll see who’s prepared and who’s not – remember, the town board has an attorney do all their talking – the school board members have to buck-up and answer the questions themselves. Which, by the way, you do a very good job of; I have to give you credit for that. Unfortunately, you will soon tire of asking, and questioning and never getting an honest answer, and you too will change the way you feel about the board. So many people before you have complained about things, but, they never change.
They talked about not having the attorney attend meetings anymore.
Go to more meetings. 95% of what they do is just talk. (for the last 5, 10, 15, 20 years.) That would also be a huge mistake on their part. And would hurt the residents that pay attention to what is going on in this town. Then they will never comment on anything on record. Most of their talking is already done outside of the meetings. It will go from lack of transparency to complete secrecy.
Amen, Nothing new to see here! Only the residents will suffer – the board will never comment on anything on record and worse yet, they won’t take any action without consulting the attorney anyway, so, things will wait for a month. Either way, the lawyer is going to get paid; either for showing up for the meetings, or for all of the consulting before and after the meetings. Check the budget again Mike – how much did the attorney budget go down? Not much.
Well, at least Northwestern Mike continues to entertain boards throughout the state, we look forward to reading his blogs and share them during board meetings. Helps prevent us from making same dumb communication/disclosure errors that Northwestern Mike does. Could be used to train board members regarding proper behavior!