We the undersigned urge the Board of School Estimate to approve the separate proposal to the 2004-2005 school budget in its entirety for the following reasons: Voting against the separate proposal, or approving it only in part, will cause undue harm to our children by denying them critically important services. Voting against the separate proposal will not relieve the tax burden of Maplewood and South Orange residents. The services in the separate proposal CANNOT be added back into the budget. These services could only be paid for by parent contributions or other fund-raising methods outside of the budget and property tax revenues. Consequently, if the separate proposal is defeated, our children will suffer from the lack of adequate programming and resources AND we will continue to be overtaxed. We all need to work together to solve the real tax problem facing our communities: inadequate state funding because of an unfair designation under state funding formulas. We must not let our children