Mr. Alston government bodies, all government bodies, simply must get out opf the business of funding groups that should rightly belong to the people and private individual's donations. Examples: Civil Rights Museum, little leagues, the Jaycees, and all the rest that I am sure you are aware of. My tax dollars should be spent on services that benefit the public as a whole and not small groups of the public. I don't know where we got off track here but governments, all governments, use this method to gain more and more control over the people and the people's money. There would be no need for a tax increase if all these organizations were taken off the dole.

You might also force a reduction in county employees by insisting on a 10 per cent decrease in upper management positions. And make it clear that in six months you will be back and will demand to see the specifics of what positions were cut.

Ronald E. Newton
I appreciate being able to view the budget!

Thanks

Thanks for your suggestions. I will take all of them into consideration before we adopt the final budget.

GTCC needs a 12.6% budget increase for what? More students and facilities? So says the FY ’08 proposed budget on pp 121-122. The school that cannot provide its tech programs with adequate tools for learning really needs money for something else. This need arises from the inability of GCS to provide the most basic education to its graduates. What is this need, exactly? GTCC has far more non-credit level and required basic math and English courses than “college” level ones. Most of the students in these classes are GCS grads! Here’s a Fall ’07 breakdown:

English, non-credit 80
ENG 111 (required course) 76
above ENG 111 53
(plus 51 “reading” classes!)


Math, non-credit 106
All credit courses and labs 60
(Non-credit math labs are considered part of the course, unlike all other GTCC courses, so the 106 essentially becomes 212.)

This problem gets worse each year. The costs of educating the masses should be shifting more towards GTCC, judging by this data. Instead, GCS wants an $11 million budget increase! I’ll vote against every school bond until I feel the money won’t be wasted. I hope you use this to tell the school board "NO!" to any more money until they decide to focus on education instead of how to juggle statistics and advertise how "great" they are.