Medford Taxpayers, if you are concerned about the character of your community and bringing spending under control I encourage you to vote a straight ‘no’ on all township resolutions, Medford K-8 Budget and Lenape Budget on April 27. Proposals that if your home is appraised at $200,000 will cost you a minimum of $625 in new property taxes ($325 municipal, $200 Medford K-8 and $100 Lenape).
The current Medford Council is going to try and make up for their past mismanagement by convincing you that if you allow them to raise taxes and accept the community opposed Medford Crossing project that they can correct past mistakes. This is only a short-term solution. In the long run Medford Crossing is going to destroy the character of our community and dramatically increase taxes in the future. It is time to bring township spending under control and make the hard choices of what we are willing to fund.
Every spring we are faced with school systems demanding more money to fund nice to half projects rather than better managing the hard earned money they extort from us. The governor in attempting to reign in state spending has established a 2 percent cap on government spending. The school systems see this as an opportunity to increase your taxes again whether they need it or not. In the last couple of years, the Lenape Regional High School District went on a spending binge spending millions on non-educational expenditures adding non-instructional facilities, paving parking lots, expanding athletic facilities then crying wolf that they don’t have the money to meet basic educational needs.
Some of Medford K-8 schools are expending money on solar systems to hopefully reduce energy expenditures. While this may prove beneficial in the long run, but when you don’t have enough current money to pay teachers and support educational programs it seems a frivolous expense. Recent state SAT tests indicated that most Lenape students are achieving less than 70 percent, a failing grade based on my public school education.
It is time for the community to say ‘no’ to further expenditures for nice –to-have non-essential programs until educational standards are raised to acceptable levels.
Marion A. Eggleton
