Monday, March 31, 2025

In the Last 5 Years, State Aid for the Lodi Schools Has Increased from 20,787,810 to $43,199,877. Lodi Taxes Should Have Significantly Been Lowered. Instead, Nancy Cardone’s BOE Members Voted to Raise Taxes.

The numbers in my title were taken from the State Department of Education link below:

User-Friendly Budgets

Michael Rinderknecht and Nancy Cardone should explain to the public how much Lodi school taxes would have increased in the last 5 years if Lodi's aid remained flat while they increased their budget by $26,677,379 or 43% (61,582,255 to $88,259,634).

Phil Murphy took millions of dollars in aid away from towns that voted against him and transferred it to towns like Lodi.  Phil Murphy will be out of office next January.  If the Lodi BOE is raising taxes while receiving millions more in additional aid each year, what do you think is going to happen next year?

It is so insulting when people like Nancy Cardone and members of her political group tell others that their bloated budgets and tax increases are “for the children”.  Nobody has enriched themself and family more than Nancy Cardone. 

Nancy Cardone may say "it's for the children", but she has also spent your tax dollars quite lavishly on administrators that took care of her family.

She had no problem giving Doug Petty a $27,000 raise before his contract was up:

Lodi By The Numbers: Search results for doug petty pay raise

She had no problem giving Michael Rinderknecht a 36,670.08 raise:

Lodi By The Numbers: The Lodi Board of Education and its Business Administrator Have Not Been Honest or Transparent About the Business Administator’s Compensation…

These greedy, self-serving hypocrites can spare the lectures about who is for the children.  Because it clearly is not them.