A letter in the June 10 issue from Anthony Fleres, a member to the WW-P Board of Education, generated 14 comments online at www.wwpinfo.com. In the letter Fleres defended the school board budgeting process from attacks made by resident Quentin Walsh.
Walsh was one of the first to respond online: “Dear Mr. Fleres. Thank you for addressing my comments. I stand by my financial techniques. Every budget that I have ever been involved with compares both budget to actual as well as budget to budget.
“I note that in your letter to the April 15th WW-P News, you claimed that the actual expenses ran 3 to 5 percent below budget. I am glad that you are now using more accurate numbers. It appears that it is the practice of the school board to overstate their budget needs by 4 to 6 percent each and every year, just in case something unexpected happens.
“I also note that the $503,000 in cuts that were made to the rejected 2011-2012 budget only represent a small portion of the contingencies that were already provided in the budget.”
The school board, which has taken plenty of hits from the online crowd, this time got some support. Several posts attacked Walsh’s analysis and questioned his motives. “Mr. Walsh, you obviously have lot of time on your hands to monitor these boards. Can you please take some time and explain to parents why you have to resort to made up numbers to make your point? Since your kids are out of school, you owe an explanation to parents why you lied about increase in per student expense in your last letter.
“What do you have against the school district that you are out to destroy our excellent school district?”
Meanwhile, a story about West Windsor’s community swimming pool complex, WaterWorks, drew online fire from residents concerned that the pool is another burden on the taxpayers. And one post managed to equate the pool to another summer tradition: Referring to the presumed cost of the pool, the online viewer wrote: “Probably should’ve thought about that a few years ago when West Windsor was literally burning tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars so West Windsor could have its very own fireworks show. How many of you saw that?”
