Editor, Gazette-Journal:

It is budget time again in Mathews County, and our county has some hard decisions to make. The board of supervisors will have to find a way to pay the bills with a shrinking amount of tax revenue. Times are tight for all of us and our county is not exempt from the shrinking value of our dollar.

With this in mind, we have to review all county expenditures and assure that our tax dollars are being well spent. Last year, the board of supervisors handled the budget issue very well and I hope they will do the same this year. Mathews County’s largest expenditure by far is our schools. With over half of the county’s revenues going to the school system, it is one of the primary places in which cost savings are going to have to be found. In tough economic times like we are experiencing now, it is prudent that we look to get the most out of each dollar spent.

In researching how our school system compares to similar sized student population school syst...