from u/novelteal Could you be specific about which votes and actions taken by other BoE members and state/local governments you disagree with and you feel are interfering with having better public schools in Jersey City? And as a follow up, if you were hypothetically able to snap your fingers and get the BoE and local governments to change anything you wanted about our current process, what realistic solutions would you implement?

I think this board blindly approved budgets without question during the COVID pandemic and again now when we are entering a recession with high inflation. While the 2022-2023 budget barely passed with a 5-4 vote, I still think it was irresponsible to raise the budget to $973 million after losing so much state aid. I also think that there has not been enough sense of urgency concerning our crumbling infrastructure. As a district we were allowed to use much of the federal COVID dollars to fix several issues with our schools. Yet there is still currently $105 million in federal funds sitting and waiting to be used for such projects. But the answer was raising taxes again? Even with this money sitting dormant? Also, we just received another $89 million dollars from the state. Once the state accepted $2.5 billion in federal COVID relief money, the state agreed to comply with a provision called the Maintenance of Equity. This provision prohibits states from cutting state aid in high-need districts in 2021 and 2022 and barred the state from reducing aid to high-poverty districts below 2019 levels. Again, we knew this money was coming but it was more important to raise taxes on our residents? The total of both of these cash windfalls is $194 million dollars! Enough said.

As far as a snap-of-the-fingers solution I don’t think there is one. I will say that we really need to come up with a long term solution or we will be right back here next year. The state, county, city and the district need to communicate regularly for REAL budgetary solutions and not kick the can down the road. Our kids deserve better and the only way to accomplish this is to work together.