AISD candidate forum at Mills Elementary
By Yvonne Lim Wilson Thursday, 08 April 2010
Budget priorities dominated the conversation at candidate forum hosted by the Mills PTA on April 7 held at the Mills elementary school cafeteria. The forum was for Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees candidates running for District 7 (Southwest Austin) and At-large District 9.
Incumbent Robert Schneider and retired educator Warren Faulkner are running for the District 7 seat. Tamala Barksdale, Cassandra Brown, Julie Cowan, Dianne Mendoza and Mike Reed are running for the at-large seat. All listed candidates except for Mendoza and Reed attended the forum.
The district’s $7.1 million shortfall was a source of many of the audience’s questions. All the candidates expressed reservations for a tax increase, saying they would prefer looking at budget cuts first.
“I have not heard a lot of support for a tax increase right now,” said Cowan, who supports first examining programs that are not working and could be cut.
Brown added that the board needed to give superintendent Meria Carstarphen a chance to look for efficiencies before going to voters to ask for a tax increase. However, she did say that she believed a tax increase would be needed at some point in the future.
“Tax cuts are the very last thing to me,” Barksdale said.
Schneider also said he is not in favor of tax cuts at the moment and said that structural deficits need to be addressed.
Faulkner echoed similar sentiments about looking for program cuts and efficiencies first, but also added that a small tax increase to support the strategic plan and salary increases for teachers could be approved by voters.
“We don’t need to sell our citizens short,” he said, adding that the last tax increase was approved by 60 percent of voters three years ago.
Other topics discussed included plans for a new high school in southwest Austin, school closures and ideas to improve school boundary processes.
Currently, District 1 incumbent Cheryl Bradley, District 4 incumbent Vince Torres and District 6 incumbent Lori Moya have no challengers. District 1 encompasses East and Northeast Austin and District 6 encompasses South Central Austin.
Early voting takes place April 26 through May 4 and Election Day is May 8. For more information, visit http://www.austinisd.org/inside/board/election.phtml.
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