The Shrinking Slice
Where is our money actually going?
Imagine the total economic activity connected to our community as a pie.
Years ago, the community’s slice was large enough. Teacher salaries circulated locally. School events brought people together. Property values reflected a stellar school system - one that West Orange built a reputation on, especially in special education. We still relied on some external services (textbooks aren’t printed locally), but the balance worked. The board and union could argue about the details because the fundamentals were sound.
Today, that slice has shrunk while the demands within it have grown. Healthcare premiums have ballooned as private equity and insurance middlemen extract more and more from the system. Corporate vendors take their cut. Administrative overhead grows. The money that used to circulate locally is being siphoned outward - not because we’re spending more frivolously, but because the cost of everything the district depends on has been inflated by layers of rent-seeking that didn’t exist a generation ago.
Tomorrow, if nothing changes, the slice shrinks past the point of viability. Teachers leave because the pay can’t sustain a life here. Families leave because the schools can’t sustain their children. The tax base erodes. The extraction continues. What remains isn’t a school system - it’s a shell.
The board isn’t wrong that the numbers don’t work. The union isn’t wrong that the workers are being squeezed. They’re both looking at the same shrinking slice from different angles.
The question is: who’s eating the rest of the pie?