Submitted by Board of Estimate and Taxation Democrats, Elliot Alchek, Matt DesChamps, Scott Kalb, Leslie Moriarty, Stephen Selbst and David Weisbrod
We were pleased to read that three Republicans on the BET have reversed their earlier decision to cut the BOE budget by $4 million, offering to restore $2 million of those cuts.
(Alfano, Arora, Jansen, Cappiali: A Targeted Interim Fix to Preserve High School Start Times May 16, 2025)
The Democrats on the BET stand ready to support this restoration of funding, as we have consistently communicated since the cut was made, because we believe there is nothing more important than providing the best education possible for the children of our town, but we wish this had been done much earlier.
The community has endured unnecessary hardship and widespread confusion. We’d like for this chaos to end.
So, the BET Democrats will take you up on your public offer. We will propose a motion at this Monday’s May 19th BET meeting to add an item to the agenda to increase the Schools funding by $2 million.
We don’t need a formal request from the BOE. We already received that data in the budget delivered to us in January and by watching them struggle to find the ‘least worst’ alternatives to lower their anticipated spending by $4.5 million. A vote on Monday will allow the RTM to have this item on the Call for its upcoming June 9th RTM meeting. Although this action is coming late, we hope the BET can show it is listening to the voices in the community; we know that so many in our Town would be grateful.
Elliot Alchek
Matt DesChamps
Scott Kalb
Leslie Moriarty
Stephen Selbst
David Weisbrod