An awful lot of people are very upset with us, and we've got to do whatever we can to reduce taxes and show them we are trying.

I think that he did a very professional job in a very, very precarious time. I don't know if we have another board member that can rise to the occasion. It takes a little bit of skill to do that job. But we all have to work together and hopefully we'll have more checks and balances than we did before.

We won't be seeing anything we haven't seen already this year. The experience we have and the schedule we played, I hope that's got us ready.

Short term, this is going to be bad. Long term, this may be good.

The suggestions are not meant to gut any program but to stimulate discussion. I also feel that most of my suggestions are logical and, if voted on, will not affect the educational quality. They are from the top down.

We're going to have to whittle it down. I think we can cut harmlessly at first, and then we'll have to do more deeper cuts.