The Orange DTC is encouraging everyone to vote on June 14th, the third referendum on the Amity Budget.  The ODTC supports a yes vote on this budget for many reasons.  Here are a few:

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• Further cuts will affect the quality of our children's education.  We support our children and the great education they received in the Orange and Amity School Systems.

  • A YES vote supports our children.

• The more cuts made to our budget, the larger the negative impact to the school system. The school system is the main factor driving our property values. 

  • A YES vote supports strong property values.

• It is likely another referendum failure will see additional cuts to sports, electives, and the safety and security of the students, including security officers and nursing staff.

  • A YES vote supports the security of our students.

• 20 years ago, we had 17 referendums fail because Amity ran out of funds and had mismanagement. Processes have been put in place ever since to avoid those issues and is why a regional system must run a surplus, approximately 1% of the budget. The District cannot keep a “rainy day fund” for operational emergencies for unforeseeable expenses - it must return its surplus to the towns at the end of the year or allocate a small portion to a capital fund for one-off improvements. Getting additional funds from the towns during the year is costly and impractical, so the surplus has become an emergency fund. This is common to financial planning - for instance, the town of Orange keeps about a 16% surplus each year.

  • A YES vote understands the need for a small annual surplus.

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Additional info from another source: www.growbowa.com/2022-amity-budget.

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More research from the ODTC.

Absentee ballots are available from the Town Clerk's office: mshaw@orange-ed.org