No School Tax Hike!

An editorial from Gannett's Courier-Post:
Districts that want voters to approve budgets must minimize tax hikes.
"It's not that I don't want good schools. I can't give more.'
That was Winslow resident Rich Reilly explaining why he voted against a $69.9 million plan to build an elementary school and improve existing schools in Winslow.
Reilly's sentiment echoes others in Winslow, where the referendum failed by a more than 3-1 margin Tuesday.
But the sentiment goes beyond even Winslow. In these tough economic times, school districts have to be extremely frugal with taxpayer dollars and realize that the residents they're asking for money from aren't in a position, because of the recession, to see their already inflated property tax bills go up further.
On April 21, five weeks from now, voters in every community will go to the polls to vote on local and regional school district budgets for the 2009-2010 school year. We hope that school district officials across South Jersey see what happened in Winslow and understand what it means. Even residents who fully support the public schools and want the best are feeling financially pinched these days.
Property tax increases absolutely must be kept to a minimum. If that means delaying some projects, putting off buying some new books or computers, etc. school districts need to do it. All public institutions these days, including schools, which take the largest slice of the property tax pie, need to tighten their belts and do everything they can to ease the burden on taxpayers.
We'll go one ste further: In the weeks ahead and on April 21 we hope New Jersey taxpayers speak loud and clear and say "NO SCHOOL TAX INCREASES!"
We simply cannot afford any further burden on our property taxes.