GUEST COLUMN: Support Your Home, Your Family And Your Cardinal Community
I'm Barb Rayburn, the current Cardinal Levy Chairperson.Over the past two months, Supporters of Cardinal Schools, the levy committee supporting the upcoming levy, has spent…
I’m Barb Rayburn, the current Cardinal Levy Chairperson.
Over the past two months, Supporters of Cardinal Schools, the levy committee supporting the upcoming levy, has spent countless hours getting levy information and the serious need for its passage to all Cardinal community members via traditional and electronic/digital venues.
I’ve talked to many people since we began our levy campaign and I’ve heard every kind of viewpoint regarding levies, taxes, school spending, what kids deserve and what they should be able to live without.
I can say confidently that a “no” vote for a school levy is choosing a financially failing school system.
When our superintendent and treasurer have voiced concerns at the state level regarding the decline in state funding for schools, the state’s answer has been a resounding, “That’s what levies are for!” Our Cardinal kids are in need of school funding now, not when the state legislature finally, if ever, comes to its senses and decides to value education again.
Currently, Cardinal Schools is on the road to fiscal emergency. Without the budget cuts made by CLSD thus far, the district would already be at that sorry point financially. Fortunately, Cardinal Schools has a superintendent and treasurer who have the knowledge and tenacity to continue to fight back against numbers that are chronically against the school system. Cardinal Schools has made significant budget cuts equal to $864,000 for fiscal year 2017. Over the last five years, cuts in the budget caused a reduction of 21 employees, including administrators, teachers and classified personnel.
Budget cuts only work as long as there are feasible items to cut. Cardinal is at the tipping point, with very few possible cuts left and those are sorry cuts for a school district to be forced to make. Further, cutting valuable school programs is not the path to a thriving school system or community.
With operating costs continually rising and school district revenues perpetually declining, Cardinal Schools is in the midst of the perfect storm for fiscal emergency. The numbers have been run and the imminent forecast for CLSD is grim financially.
Schools need to be funded and a public school cannot fund itself. Funding is the responsibility of the community. It’s the reason we are Cardinal Local School District, not Cardinal Federal or State School District. Expecting that a school system should be able to run on revenues that are almost 25 years old — since Cardinal has not passed new/continuing operating money since 1992 — is indicative of a community that is shirking its responsibility to its current and future students, Cardinal kids.
It is proven factual that a school system that is supported by the community supports a community back generation after generation. As Cardinal voters, we can confidently support our school system knowing statistically that homeowners in a stable school system benefit from higher home values and a more stable economic environment.
Supporting Cardinal is supporting your home and family as well as the school and community. Whether you are elderly or a young mom or dad, your home value matters.
Looking at schools nearby, we can see that a heartily supported, financially stable school system has been an economic boon for those communities. Home values are much higher, jobs are more plentiful and those communities are thriving. People want to live in those communities. Cardinal Schools and the Cardinal community deserve that kind of stability as well.
I ask you to think back to your own education, whether you’re nostalgic or cringing, whether it was amazing or possibly traumatic your education was afforded to you by the community you lived in, maybe the Cardinal community even. As Cardinal voters, we need to support our school system now, so that future Cardinal kids will be afforded the educational possibilities our kids are hoping for and needing now.
Cardinal has not passed new operating money since 1992. Now is the time to level the financial playing field for Cardinal kids. Vote YES on Aug. 2 and be assured that when supporting Cardinal Schools you are supporting your home, your family and your community, as well as Cardinal kids now.
Thank you in advance for supporting Cardinal Schools and our Cardinal community on Aug. 2.
Barb Rayburn
Levy Chairperson
Supporters of Cardinal Schools
