Thursday, February 12, 2009

Budget Cuts are Affecting all schools

Nicole Szeto

02.10.09

English 1B

Gabor

San Jose councilmen renew push to tap tobacco money for crossing guards

San Jose City Council members agreed to move $1.9 million in tobacco settlement money from nonprofit organizations to crossing guards at schools. Many parents and prospectors joined Councilmen Pierluigi Oliverio and Pete Constant to push this new promotion with tobacco companies because this can provide funding for nearly 200 police-supervised crossing guards. The crossing guard program is highly affected by next year’s $65 million deficit next year by a 20 percent reduction. This tobacco settlement will hopefully schools by funding enough money to help pay for cross guards. Parents like Lori Katcher, who has two kids attending Merrit Trace Elementary School, said “Any amount of wonderful programs will mean nothing if our children aren’t safe.” This program is being pushed by many who spoke as the council’s Rules and Open Government Committee to consider this new proposal. Hopefully this program will also help parents feel more secure about their kid’s safety. The budget cut that will be occurring next year is affecting everyone in San Jose, from elementary schools to San Jose State University. This budget cut will make all the schools have some withdrawals which will affect the students within the school.

2 comments:

gaborblog said...

Neither of your links go to San Jose based articles . . .what's up with that?

Bryan said...

We talked about this in class on Monday didn't we? I think that getting money from the Tobacco companies would be a great idea to get money. They make millions and not share it with the world. A lot of people smoke so it would be like they're helping our education. What do they do with all the millions they make?