Once again Oradell get stuck paying for River Edge students. Maybe people in Oradell take more pride in ther houses than River Edge. Maybe we don't take vacations or buy fancy vehicles and put our money into maintaining our structures. Common sense will tell you the formula is not fair. It should be done per student.

Now that the Murray led republicans have been in control of Oradell for a year or more, I'd like to hear what they've done to further the battle against the inequity in school funding between Oradell and RE. I'm sure someone on the Town Council reads The Patch. So let's hear from one of you. Or are you content to say what the previous republicans (and others who stand up in meeting and blow hot air) in town have said for years "I live in Oradell and I knew the taxes were higher when I moved here, so I'm fine with paying more. If you can't afford to live here then move." So.....how have you kept the fight going?

By the way, love the picture of the Stepford Board of Education. Especially those who allegedly represent to citizens and students of Oradell. One can't expect those from River Edge to ask questions. Why should they (and the RE-residing superintendent) not want Oradell to pay for their kids to go to school. But the "trustees" (ha!) from Oradell are a sham.

Yes, once again Oradell rises to the forefront of paying more for less students. Just how and when will RE residents care about the taxes when they have Oradell to subsidize their kids? What is the RDBOE going to present a budget that is neutral? The teachers are now paying more and more of their health care, just what are they doing with that money?

$26.9 million is not a 2% increase over last year. It's closer to 3.5% ! (smoke & mirrors!) I guess that's ok with residents of both towns. I wish there were a correlation between increased spending & increased test scores, but we know that hasn't happened. How can the majority of "I & J" Districts stay at a 0% increase the last 3 budgets (& their school rankings not suffer), & we can't. It would be nice if somebody was watching the hen house (or questioned SOMETHING!).

Nice picture of the Board of Education. Notice how you can't see their hands, it's because their hands are in "OUR" pockets.

This is so confusing. Oradell has an ALL REpublican council and there is a Republican County Exe and Republicn Freeholders and they all ran on lowering taxes. They swore to lower property taxes and even Governor Chrisite swore he would lower property taxes. So where are the lower property taxes. Chrisite would never lie to us.

It would be nice to blame the “big bad Republicans” for our higher taxes, but let me explain how it works. The bulk of our tax bill is our schools. If our Boards don’t keep the expenses down, our taxes go up. Thanks to our governor, there is a 2% cap on the school budgets. Unfortunately, not enough people question the budget & as a result, River Dell’s board continues to spend our money like nobody’s watching. Oh wait, ……. nobody is.

Linda, I know how it works. Thanks anyway. And, if you carefully reread my earlier post, you'll see that I was calling out the Republican Oradell Mayor and Council for not doing everything they could to continue the fight to fix the completely bogus and unfair school funding formula that resulted in a decrease in funding from RE and an INCREASE in Oradell funding. This was one of the primary objectives of the previous mayor's administration as it, as you so eloquently said, is "the bulk of our tax bill." To date, can anyone tell me what the current mayor and council have done to attempt to fix this? They all give it lip service when they ring our door bells begging for votes. But now that they're all unfortunately uncontested, this cause has gone by the wayside. I asked if any council person would like to comment....or explain where we are with this. They have to be reading this digital rag.
Also, let me explain to you how the school board works. Rather, how it doesn't work. The River Dell Regional school board is dominated by RE residents AND "educators" who have their heads so far up the superintendent's rear end that they can hear what's going on let alone ask questions about it. Further, Oradell's representation on that board is for the most part a joke.
Also, Linda, I've been to plenty of past BOE meetings. Plenty of questions were asked about the budget. The Board grins and moves on. No concerns are ever addressed. THAT's how it works.

Thanks Eamon. I appreciate your reply and update. One would think that the Oradell Borough administration would have issued some sort of comment when news of the lopsided school tax levy was disseminated over a week ago. And one might think that if the Council was on top of this, and to keep the community informed, they would have issued a letter to both the Judge and Commissioner about the recent inequitable allocation of taxes to further illustrate the need for amending the formula. But this real life, wallet-sucking problem just isn't a priority for them.
Thanks for your reply.

They don't do much in Oradell.