February marks the beginning of “Budget Season” for both the Garden City School District and the Village of Garden City. Both entities have scheduled numerous work sessions to involve the public in the creation of budgets. While no one likes to pay higher taxes, in reality, the cost of everything goes up every year. The Village Board of Trustees and the School Board, whose members are homeowners themselves, have the fiduciary duty to the rest of the community to see that taxes are well spent. To carry out that responsibility, they need to get input from the community about what “well spent” means to everyone.

In the schools, some members of the community might favor additional spending on music education; another might prefer more emphasis on the sciences. Neither opinion is “right” or “wrong,” but for the board to do its job well, it needs to have a sense of what the whole community wants.

We encourage our readers to attend at least some of the meetings, and to write to our “Letters” column to begin the discussion of budget priorities.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher