I don’t believe officials in SAD 13 are giving voters enough information for them to cast informed ballots about the proposed budget.

We have no information about where last year’s carryover funds went and pages of necessary data were missing from the budget flier sent out on Aug. 14.

The state is paying directly to the teachers more than $200,000 toward their retirement funds. Taxpayers pay retirement funds to other employees. I believe some retired teachers will get refunds for retirement fees that were frozen before.

I believe budget costs get inflated and are covered by the carryovers. When carryovers get used up, taxpayers are expected to cover the rest of the inflated budgets.

District budgets are complex, allowing amounts to be moved in and out by the board using the superintendent’s financial plan. We need transparency.

As happened last year, I expect this year’s carryover also will disappear before the end of this school year, into whatever and wherever; and we will be in the same position we are in this year.

The idea of a budget is to live or work within the budget. We know the government spends the money it receives by taxing property owners. It appears that school districts spend our money and then tax us to recover the funds they’ve spent.

In family budgets, we can’t keep spending, hoping someone, somewhere will replace the funds. Residents just want the district to operate the same as we have to.

The district works for us; we don’t work for them. The next vote on the school budget will be held on from 1 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the polls in Bingham and Moscow.

Essie Golden

Bingham