It's that time of year again, municipal budget season. Across the area cities and towns are formulating their budgets for next year. Inevitably many of the discussions will focus on education budgets and the high cost of education. Political action committees and people come out of the woodwork to decry the high cost of our schools and demand town leaders cut school budgets and reduce taxes.

I was wondering if the education budget naysayers have ever thought of the costs associated with not educating our children well.

Our children are our future taxpayers. Will they be able to be employed and enjoy a decent standard of living, or will they get added onto our already overburdened social service system? It is a fact that the more well educated an individual is, the better chances they have at gainful employment.

To the education budget naysayers, I say, you can pay a little now for quality education or you can pay a lot more later over the lifetimes of those not well educated. We will have to increase social service budgets, police budgets, and prison system budgets to accommodate those that we fail to educate now.