From the Sunday Republican American…..
The Kent Board of Education is planning to propose using all or part of the anticipated $74,870 surplus from the regional education budgets.
The budget subcommittee met Tuesday and listened to a suggestion from Jonathan Moore, the town’s representative to the Region 1 Board of Education.
Moore shared a memo from Region 1 Business Manager Samuel J. Herrick that detailed the entire surplus is expected to be $393,600, with $80,499 from the Housatonic Valley Regional High School budget, $330,330 from Pupil Services and there was an overage of $17,229 in the Central Office Budget, following the completion of the financial audit. Moore said there were several ways that the money might be able to assist with the tough budget year coming up.
“By law you can keep 1 percent of it for capital expenditures,” Moore said.“This money was approved for educational purposes so why not use it for that, rather than sending it to the highway department.”
This is just another glaring example of Jonathan Moore’s total disregard of taxpayers and the local Kent Board Of Finance. In our opinion, the proper action would be for the Kent Board Of Education to return the surplus to the town, and then, at a town meeting ask taxpayers to vote on where to spend the “surplus”. Town residents and The Board Of Finance very well may want to spend it on reducing the cost of education, but it should be their choice, not Jonathan Moore’s or the Kent Boards choice.