Why compensation cuts from all RUSD employees are needed

Over the past several months, the Ramona Unified School District has increasingly emphasized the need to cut operating costs in order to maintain the level of fiscal solvency necessary to accomplish our mission to “prepare today’s learners for tomorrow’s world.”

In doing so, we have already cut dozens of teaching and support positions as well as music programs for elementary school children, summer school, our GATE program, and funds for classroom supplies. Our classified and management employees agreed to compensation cuts of three unpaid furlough days last year and up to 10 percent annually for the next three years. However, as drastic as those cuts have been, they have not been enough. We need reductions in our compensation costs from all our employees.

Let’s not surrender liberty for security

Freedom is described as the power to do as one pleases; the power of choice; the power of independence; the power to make our own decisions. It means freedom from physical restraint; freedom from arbitrary or despotic control; liberation from slavery or restraint from the power of another. Freedom rests on a tripod of a “market” economy, a “limited” government and “private property.”

Government Extortion: Officials who threaten are bullies and deceivers

A few weeks ago, our president was complaining about pending budget cuts set in motion by a previous deal he made with other politicians. It’s called sequestration.

Sequestration was an idea that came from Obama’s team, and Obama embraced the idea. Because Obama has no budget, again, sequestration is about to happen. Obama now threatens to punish us with cuts in emergency and essential services if he is prevented from having things go his way. Threatening the general public with punitive actions is a regular strategy of corrupt politicians and the bureaucrats who support them. When overspending government bureaucrats want more of our money, and when we hesitate in giving it to them, they threaten us.

San Vicente Survival: Training can go a long way

In the ongoing discussions about the San Vicente Road project, many letters have expressed the notion that the road is inherently dangerous and presents particular challenges for inexperienced teen drivers.

Without getting into a debate about whether this is so, concerned parents might consider sending their teen to a driver school that goes beyond the rudimentary

Public school funding

Public school unions want more of our money even though the quality of the education we get is questionable at best.

Union leaders want raises and more benefits. They even attack their own administrators using envy as a tactic to try to get some of the administrators’ money into their own pockets. It is pathetic that we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated into fighting each other for the scraps that our corrupt politicians drop off the

Update on RUSD negotiations with teachers union

As most Ramona residents know, our school district has been in negotiations for the past several months with the Ramona Teachers Association, attempting to reach a contract settlement for the 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years that is both fair to our teachers and financially responsible to district taxpayers.

At the heart of the matter is the district’s critical need to reduce costs in order to maintain financial solvency. Our district’s revenues are down 20 percent from what they were five years ago, due to continuing reductions in per-student funding from the state and 11 years of declining enrollments. Our costs, however, have not declined. To the contrary, they are rising.

In order to balance our $45 million budget this year, we’ve already taken several painful steps

Join teachers in seeking fair settlement

Times are definitely better for California’s public schools. The state’s economy is slowly rebounding, and with the passage of Proposition 30, the state’s K-12 schools are not facing more cuts, but are actually seeing funding increases that should mean stable funding to schools for the next several years.

Proposed stable changes worth supporting

Public feedback on the Draft of the Equine Ordinance and the accompanying Environmental Impact Report is being sought.

You can review the documents on the county’s Equine Ordinance and Information website: sdcounty.ca.gov/pds/advance/Equine.html.

A better approach to gun control

A lot of outcry against gun ownership has risen recently, especially after the Newtown, Conn., shooting. A lot of folks don’t seem to know that California already has a relatively unknown gun control program that is far more rational that just outlawing a particular type of weapon, although that process defines an illegal weapon.

Road improvements are a benefit rather than affront

I must be getting old. I remember when the sanctity of life was more important than the preservation of a tree, even 150 trees, all of which are a renewable resource, unlike that of a human life. I also remember when we listened to each other, communicated our thoughts, and found satisfaction in working to find resolution to differences of opinion through honest discourse.