First, we should like to express our humble and heartfelt thanks to the long suffering Jackson voters for their amazing spontaneous support in the recent school board election. Though we lost by a hair, we proved that Jackson voters do and will respond to issues properly framed without recourse to worn-out clichs so dear to the panhandling wannabe (pseudo) education elitists among us.

The bloated, obscene school budget lost big time, nearly 2 to 1. The voters, and the Trenton politicians, are beginning to grasp the truth that all school budgets include 12 to 14 percent budgeted surplus, to be hoarded to enable the school board to weather and counter budget cuts. We asked for a forensic audit of the last four blockbuster Jackson school budgets to track the slithering of funds in and out of "surplus" and we will continue to press for one, and that is a promise to the taxpayers of Jackson (as many of you have asked us).

We challenge the Jackson Township Committee to find the backbone to direct the school board to move an added $7.821 million out of the hoarded (undeclared) surplus into the budget to keep the general fund tax levy at last year's $53.951 million. It's our tax money and they must get the hoarded surplus rebated; it's the law.

Sal Duscio

Nicolas Antonoff

Jackson