Funds weren’t used for administrators
This letter is to provide facts in response to comments made during the County Commissioner meeting on June 2 regarding the School Boards’ budget request.
Commissioner Tina Hall stated that funds requested last year by the School Board for technology infrastructure were used to hire administrators. That statement is inaccurate.
The funds for technology infrastructure came from the bond package issued by the county as a capital outlay expense item and could not be used for salaries. The county directly pays the vendors. No funds were received by the School Board.
The commissioners are considering our current expense budget that includes items other than capital outlay. Included in this request is the addition of seven technology facilitators and increased teaching supplements.
The only administrator positions added were four new assistant principal positions that were part of the budget request submitted to the county last year. One assistant principal was for the new Shive Elementary School and three other assistant principals were placed at small elementary schools because of concerns for school safety providing an administrative presence at schools when principals would be unavailable. This increased part-time positions to full time positions and was included in the current expense budget request as Priority 1 items last year.
Through reorganization and school board approval, two assistant principals were added at high impact needs schools that have over 70 percent free and reduced lunch. Additional funding was not required.
Each year valid budget requests are received from schools and departments and the superintendent and School Board determine which requests to fund. Although the request sent to commissioners is created with many final funding requirements contingent upon legislative outcomes, it is created with intentions to apply the funding to items identified in the request.
ó Tara Trexler
Salisbury
Tara Trexler is chief financial officer for the Rowan-Salisbury School System.
Newsflash: They’re not all illegal!
Last month, my husband and I finally completed our agonizing ordeal with United States Immigration. He finally arrived here from El Salvador after years of jumping through all of the outrageous hoops immigration puts you through. Considering the absolute hell that we went through in trying to “do things the right way” and bring Giovanni into this country legally, it infuriates me when people automatically assume that because my husband is Hispanic, he must, of course, be illegal.
We recently dealt with one such experience when we went to the Lexington DMV office to get my husband a North Carolina license. When looking over my husband’s visa, the officer working with us questioned the expiration date that Homeland Security had written in my husband’s passport. The officer boorishly suggested that the date written down on my husband’s document was 2007, not 2008, as if accusing us of trying to pull a fast one on her.
I certainly understand that the officers working in DMVs deal with a lot of bull and I can even appreciate their caution when working with immigrants, but I do not endorse racism! The fact that the officer could not read the date printed in my husband’s passport was not his fault, but the fault of the immigration officer who wrote that date down. So, if she just insists on copping an attitude with someone, I suggest next time she call up her buddies at Homeland Security.
And if that officer and any other individual working at the DMV or anywhere else can’t understand that not every immigrant that comes into their office is illegal, then I advise them to get another job!
ó Geneva Lovas
Kannapolis
Senate bill could help save lives
This political season, we’ve heard a lot about change. Obama and Clinton are talking about it. McCain is talking about it. But there seems to be one place where change is very, very slow to happen ó the United States Senate.
Despite overwhelming support from both parties, important legislation is stalled. I’m tired of these old tactics of delay, and I want to see the Senate show leadership by getting this legislation done.
Right now, a bill to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria is stuck on a shelf while the lives of millions of people are placed in jeopardy. Senators say they want to pass the bill, but they can’t find the time or aren’t willing to hammer out differences.
The people suffering from these diseases don’t have the time to wait.
They’re dying, and they need our help.
This legislation would provide funding for treatment of at least 3 million AIDS patients. It would prevent 12 million new infections, while caring for 5 million AIDS orphans. At the same time, it would pay to train and support 140,000 new health professionals to provide basic care to those in the greatest need. This legislation is about the best of America; the Senate delays are the worst of America.
ó Dannielle Wing
Salisbury
Still getting hosed on city water bills
What did I tell you? Your water bill will not go up 5.7 percent like they said, but if you add in recycling (up 32 percent) and county landfill-use fees (up 33 percent), you still average a whopping 25 percent increase to your bill. They lied.
Did the county vote on this increase? Do they get our money? Where are city recycling centers? I thought recycling “paid for itself” if done properly. Would it be cheaper to do our own? With the prospect of more drought, what can we do?
I hereby challenge every good citizen to cut back another 10 percent on usage. If you can’t scrape up enough for your water bill, how can you pay $75 for a “reconnect” fee? And the $1 discount for direct debit is unfair. Some banks charge $1 more for the processing.
No matter how you disguise Dave Treme’s water torture, we are getting soaked.
“But the heart of the pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go.”
How much longer, O Lord?
ó Clyde Overcash
Salisbury
Sloppy dressers have some cheek
I am commenting on the following disgusting situations.
I fail to understand why people like to wear pants with crotches that hang down between their knees. Those type of pants look ridiculous and seem to impair the wearer’s walking abilities. It reminds me of how a baby diaper looks when it has a heavy load and is dragging between the baby’s legs.
It is very embarrassing to be walking behind a person wearing their pants pulled down beneath their buttocks, showing their underwear or the lack of same. If people who wear their pants that way think it looks sexy, they are badly mistaken.
It looks nasty, indecent and shows a lack of decent manners. I’d rather see people’s smiling face cheeks instead of their other cheeks.
Women who wear see-through shirts with no bra underneath and very little covering their bottoms to not look sexy. Actually, it makes them look like (prostitutes). At least one out of every 50 men pays more attention to women who are dressed in modest clothing. Women are supposed to look and act like ladies.
People are not supposed to put their nakedness (private anatomy parts) on public display.
Thank you and have a blessed day.
ó Ellie Mae Lambert
Salisbury
Automation takes livelihoods away
I put in many years in a corporation. You might say I started at the bottom and worked by way to the top. I went from a maintenance mechanic to plant manager. I designed and built machinery to help people do their jobs better and faster so that they would produce products faster and could make better money. Then they would be able to live better and have a good life. This is one thing everyone looks for.
Here lately I have noticed that in our time now, this is not how things are going. It is good to build machinery to help people make better products, but it is stupid to design and build factories that take the food out of a family’s mouth. They are so smart they are stupid. When they make machines that can do the jobs of five people, so that it only takes one person to produce a product, what happens to the other four people?
Sure, there are people that are so smart they can automate production. But now those four people cannot buy anything because they no longer have any money.
Think about it. When everything is automated, people do not work. People cannot buy product. Businesses can’t sell their products. Businesses go under. Wonder why.
ó David A. Smith
Salisbury