Budget Pain

Lots of people turned out for the School Board’s budget work session last week. It seems that there’s a lot of distress over the various cuts in all areas of the budget. No one is particularly happy with the School Board, which has a thankless task in balancing everyone’s wishes. The reality is that even though a year ago we all hoped this recession would be over by now, it isn’t. While the market has partially recovered there are still an awful lot of people out of work or with reduced incomes.

The School Board has to take those people’s needs into account when they estimate tax impacts as well as the needs of the kids who will probably have larger classes next year. There will be no winners this year, but hopefully the board will be able to equitably distribute the budget pain.

Shop Locally

We were happy to see that the Merchant’s Group of the Chamber of Commerce have been working to find ways to increase the success of the smaller businesses in town. According to John Wilton of Garden City Properties, who gave a report at last week’s Village Board meeting, the group has been brainstorming new ideas to help members.

Unfortunately, he also reported to the board that the winter has been difficult for some businesses and restaurants.

As we’ve said before, the economic health of the business community directly impacts the economic health of the whole town. When businesses pay property taxes they are subsidizing the school system, which really needs the money right now (see above).

Their advertising revenues also subsidize this newspaper. We like to joke that “all the news that fits, we print”, meaning that we publish nearly everything we get that is local news. But the reality is that without the support of the business community we would have to reduce our number of pages. So shop locally - help the businesses to help the community.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher