Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Bossier School Board Members respond to My Bossier

Lindell Webb
I blogged the other day about School Board candidate Barbara Rudd visiting Matt Sciba and saying that she is in favor of the tax millage roll forward. I give Ms. Rudd points for being open and aboveboard; she could have skirted the question. It will, after all, be voted on before she would take office, if elected.
I emailed her opponent, incumbent Lindell Webb, and he returned my email saying that he is opposed to the increase. Matt also sent an email that he had met Mr. Webb and he stated he is opposed.
I decided at that point to send out an email to the remaining school board members asking their views on the increase. In addition to Mr. Webb, I got four other replies.


Allison Brigham
Allison Brigham
I am currently calling a cross section of my constituents in Benton to get their opinion on the proposed millage. I am sure you are aware, as many of us are, that the taxes we are all about to incur across the governmental lines (City, parish, state, federal) are going to hurt a number of families. I will vote as my constituents ask me, I can do no less. We can work on trimming any fat in our budget, but we must give our children an excellent education and retain our quality teachers.
We are having an informational meeting on September 2, 2010 at 4:30 pm so that our constituents can be heard. We had tried to have it at the Bossier Instructional Center next to Airline High School, but unfortunately we were told we had to have the meeting where the majority of our meetings are held. Please know that all our meetings are open to the public. If you wish to address the Board, you will need to fill out a small form before the meeting starts to do so.

Tammy Smith
Tammy Smith
I am always available to discuss concerns. We are having our budget meeting next week. I will know more at that time what will be needed for the upcoming year. I know we have about 7.5 million of extra expenses for the upcoming year based on the opening of a new school, unfunded mandates, MFP cuts, retirement mandates, etc. We need to review the budget to see where we can cut and what our revenues are at present and projected. Then make the best decision for all involved. I will be happy to respond more following our meeting. Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions.



Bill Kostelka
Bill Kostelka
Our finance meeting is the 19th of this month and we will have more information then in order to make a prudent decision.










Eddy Presley
Eddy Presley
It depends on the money we will save or gain and how much it is going to cost
the taxpayers of Bossier City.









I appreciate their responses, as I know the readers of My Bossier do.
Jack Raley, Brad Bockhaus, Michael Mosura, J. W. Slack, Kenneth Wiggins, Julian Darby and Mack Knotts did not see fit to answer our email.

6 comments:

  1. Scary that during an election year, only one of the incumbents opposes a tax increase.

    More money does not equal better education.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ms. Brigham, Would you please tell us, what is the standard deviation of the mean in your sampling?

    ReplyDelete
  3. So, citizens are welcome to voice their opinions at the Sept 2 meeting, as long as they fill out a card BEFORE the meeting, which STARTS at 4:30 p.m. For me to get there to voice my opinion, I'd have to leave work at 3:45, which I can't do. Come to think of it, most working parents can't do it either.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Bossier District Attorney's Office has a separate, fully-staffed [taxpayer funded] office dedicated specifically to addressing the issues of early intervention for dropout prevention - the Bossier Truancy Center. Why does the School Board need to hire "graduation coaches, behavior coaches, and response for intervention coordinators", duplicating the services that the D.A.'s office already provides? (See Times article http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20108110310)

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  5. Mr. Jim, please post the hyper link to the Times article Mrs. Spinger is referring to. Make it easy on everyone so we can click the hyper link and go to the article.

    Thank you. In a year of budget shortfalls and a government that thinks it can just get a blank check from the taxpayers, we all wanna know more about the school board,

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good suggestion. I just published another post concerning just the subject that Ms. Springer addressed with the link to the article.
    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

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