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Vol. 3, No. 34 . It was a dejected group of Port Perry MoJacks who sald a Tuesday, March 15, 1994 CIRC. 12,000 32 pages 155799 chool tax will go up in Durham Ratepayers in Durham Region can expect an increase in education taxes this year, says Scugog trustee Bobbie Drew, chairman of finance with the to their hock y Sunday night in Bowmanville as they were defeated 7-3 by the Eagles to lose their best of seven league championship series four games to three. At one point in this series MoJacks had a three games to one lead but the Eagles clawed their way back Into contention to win the series on home ice. MoJacks can hold their heads high however, as they pushed a very strong Eagles club to the limit. Details on the series on the Citizen Sports pages this week. Port Perry man goes to aid of young female stabbing victim A Port Perry man played Good Samaritan last Thursday night when he went to the aid of a young woman who had been stabbed repeatedly. Harry Piersma, his wife Hilda, their three children and a niece were driving on Highway 401 near Brighton when they saw a young woman without a coat, covered with blood and snow standing in the middle of the Youth accosted Durham Police are looking for a man in a large black car who offered a 12 year old boy a ride home last week. Police say the youngster was walking along Water Street in Port Perry between 4:00 and 5:00 PM last Thursday afternoon when a car pulled up beside him and the driver asked him to get in for a ride home. The boy declined and the driver became more insistent. Police said the boy became frightened and ran home where he told his parents what had happened A police spokesman said there apparently was a youth sitting in the passenger side of the car The description of the car was described as black and full sige. The driver was described as white. His age is not known BrLoop DON R CLINIC highway Mr. Piersma stopped his van and the woman started crying "help me, help me. I've been stabbed." He used a mobile phone to contact police and ambulance and the woman was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of on the busy Highway 401 for over ten minutes trying to flag down a driver to get help. He said he had been hearing truckers over the CB talking about somebody standing near the side of the road. He told the Citizen he didn't give a second thought to several stab ds, app ly from a screw driver. "She was in a real state of shock," Mr. Piersma told the Citizen, but was able to describe her attacker and the type of vehicle. The woman, 20, had been hitch-hiking from Trenton to Brighton when she was attacked by a man in his late 40's who stopped to give her a ride. Mr. Piersma said the woman told him she had been standing i 5 V.\ 5 to help. "I have daughters of my own and I'd like to think that if one ever got into this kind of trouble somebody would stop to help her," said Mr. Piersma, adding the incident was upsetting to the children with him. He phoned the hospital on Saturday and was relieved to here the woman's injuries were not serious and she had been released. Durham Board of Education. Mrs. Drew said last week the tax hike will likely be in the 2.8 per cent range. But that figure «could go higher once the Board learns the level of transfer payments it will receive from the provincial government. She said she fears transfer payments may be reduced after a warning last week from provincial treasurer Fred Laughran who indicated cuts are coming to payments made to schools, hospitals and municipalities as Ontario struggles to wrestle down a projected $10 billion deficit. Mrs. Drew said the finance committee has set a tentative budget of $369 million, which is actually $12 million less than the public Board spent on education last year in Durham Region. Asked how'the Board can spend less but still have to raise taxes, she said provincial transfer payments from Ontario have already been dropped to 1992 levels. She also cited increases in UIC and CPP payments and an eight per cent tax on employee benefits. Trustees have had to make spending cuts, she said, that amount to some $3 million. About 35 non-teaching jobs at the Board's HQ have been cut, design centres have been reduced from 19 to six and the full-day, every-other-day Kindergarten will kick in this fall, saving about $660,000 annually. Mrs. Drew stressed that the projected 2.8 per cent tax increase means the quality of education for Durham Region students will not deteriorate. "Without that increase, | believe the quality of education would suffer," she said, noting one program trustees opted to retain is grade 7-8 instrumental music However, she said that with all the spending restraints trustees have wrestled with over the last few years, the quality of education is "dangerously close" to going down "We are getting to the point where it (quality of education) will suffer. Kids in the classroom are not suffering yet, but it is dangerously close, especially in special education at the secofidary level." Had the Board opted for a sero per cent tax hike this year it would have meant "serious cuts in programming," said Mrs. Drew, as about $6 million in cuts would have to be found. Trustees are expecting to learn the level of provincial transfer payments later this month and the Board has set April 13 as the date to approve its 1994 budget. \Y% FN ESI CP oR