Without real reform, state aid won't matter

[dgriffin]

Without real reform, state aid won't matter


Times Herald Record, Editorial
Published: 02/14/12


From now until those crucial votes in May, school boards will be in a budget maze, seeking the path that meets the needs of the community, respects all of the contracts, abides by all the laws and ducks under the state's new 2 percent tax cap.

Many are navigating in public, inviting parents, teachers and others from the community to participate and give directions. That effort is genuine in one sense because if anybody wanders into one of those sessions and comes up with an idea that has not been heard before and will advance the cause, board members and administrators will be quick to adopt it. But the invitations have another, not-so-hidden agenda.

Most board members and all administrators have had years of experience putting together these budgets in all types of conditions. They know before the gavel calls the meeting to order that this year there is no way for a school to meet all of its baseline obligations and stay beneath that 2 percent figure. They know that unless they can convince the community to support a budget that would raise taxes more than that, they will have to eliminate programs and positions, starting a downward spiral in some cases, accelerating one in others.

So think of these meetings as the start of the campaign for the 60 percent, the approval level needed if communities are going to accept budgets this May that do not fit under the state-imposed tax cap.

As practical as that approach may be, boards and superintendents will be doing themselves and their communities a disservice if they fail to use these sessions for another purpose. They know that the punishment they might have to inflict on students and teachers did not start in the local schools — it started in Albany, in a Legislature that has failed for decades to provide the guidance and funding that would allow New York to support public education in a rational way.

The legislative approach had two components. The one that gets all the attention concerns unfunded mandates, the practice of imposing regulations and activities without considering how they will be funded. The other gets little attention at all yet has a much larger impact. New York spends about twice the national average per pupil because it spends so much more than other states on salaries and benefits.

When legislators no longer could provide enough money to keep this going, property taxes went up. After property owners complained for years, legislators imposed the cap, pushing the problem down to the local school level.

When local boards invite state legislators in for information sessions, as the Middletown board did recently, they should not waste time with requests for more state aid. Even if some is available, it will postpone the inevitable.

Instead, boards need to politely remind everyone that these legislators created the problem in the first place, avoided the solutions for decades and do not deserve to spend another minute, let alone another term, in Albany unless they pursue and pass real state education funding reform.

Anything less and the boards might as well not waste their time or ours.


received by email from NYS Property Tax Reform Advocates

[firstamendment]

I said it early on, that this tax cap was a sham. It does nothing to hold down costs when a simple vote can occur to override the cap. We don't need tax caps, we need spending cuts and caps. When spending is kept under control, the need for tax revenues is also under control.

[dgriffin]

You won't even get to vote when at issue are pensions and healthcare costs, which are the two largest items pushing up the budgets. Those two do not need a 60 percent majority.

There are only two ways NY citizens will escape escalating property taxes (other than leaving.)
Either the tax burden gets shifted to wealthier citizens or spending gets lowered. Since it is the wealthy citizens who are your elected representatives, don't count on that one. And since most of your school budgets, e.g., are salaries paid to members of powerful unions, don't count on that one either.

I would hate to be a school board member in today's world. The State is knifing New Yorkers in the back and the school boards are going to be left with the bills.

[frankcor]

Feb 14, 2012 20:49:57 GMT -5 @dgriffin said:

You won't even get to vote when at issue are pensions and healthcare costs, which are the two largest items pushing up the budgets.

Not only do you not get to vote on union contracts, you're likely to never have an opportunity to comment on the terms of a new contract before the school board or other government body votes to approve it. That's because public employee unions ALWAYS seek an agreement at the start of negotiations that neither side will reveal details of the negotiations to the public. Such agreements only benefit the union, never the taxpayer.

The image I have in my mind is that of a conference table behind closed doors with the union and school district negotiators both sitting on the same side of the table. The other party to the negotiation -- the taxpayer -- is not sitting at the table. We are locked outside the discussions, waiting in the lobby to hear the results.

[firstamendment]

So much for transparency, eh?

[dgriffin]

Cuomo is a liar and the legislature are a bunch of crooks. I seldom attack anyone's character, but these bums have done nothing but lie and steal. Their every word is an insult to anyone's intelligence and yet they keep getting returned to office. Cuomo is a bidonista!

[frankcor]

I love it when Dave speaks Italian.

[Clipper]

I had to google "bidonista", but Dave is 100% correct, and it is a congenital thing Cuomo inherited from his father.

[Deleted]

Feb 15, 2012 17:54:01 GMT -5 @dgriffin said:

Cuomo is a liar and the legislature are a bunch of crooks. I seldom attack anyone's character, but these bums have done nothing but lie and steal. Their every word is an insult to anyone's intelligence and yet they keep getting returned to office. Cuomo is a bidonista!

You're right Dave. And Cuomo has the cojones to propose a possible pay raise for the legistlature, while as you put it he's knifing New Yorker's in the back. We need to keep qaulified people in office as Cuomo put it. Well, considering the state that N.Y. is in, I have a better idea. I think we should call into question the qualifications of every damn one of these legistlators.

[JGRobinson]

We are screwed, I hoped Spitzer would resurrect NY, Instead he went whore shopping. Then comes Coumo, I didnt trust him at first but then started giving him the benefit of the doubt until it turned out, hes just like his daddy, great talker but its his rectum thats doing all the talking and anyone that gets close enough to hear gets covered with crap!

Thats what happens when the state employs or subsidizes the lives of such a huge chunk of the population, every election is about keeping the states jobs and programs from being cut. I guess we can only wait until NY is so broke that we can no longer afford to be the biggest employer in the state so that we can again have a private pool of voters that use their own heads to choose our leaders, not the Union Heads to cast their votes !

[Deleted]

Here we go again. It's public employees' fault because the state is broke. State employees just agreed to millions of dollars in concessions. What has Cuomo done with the the savings? He's handing it out as grants & tax breaks to corporate special interests who have him in THEIR pocket & who donated millions to HIS campaign. Union heads indeed.

What this is really all about is the fact that Cuomo like his old man & other politicians in Albany want to get their fingers into the state pension fund. That fund has assets worth over $130 billion dollars. And it galls Cuomo & others that by law the fund is out of the reach of their dirty fingers. They want to raid it & use it as a rainy day fund. Tier 6 will be a ploy for Cuomo to stick a provision in their so he can raid the fund which belongs no to the bandits in Albany, but to the workers who contributed to it.

[corner]

kracker that fund toas today is wqorth 198 billion dollars the state part of it is and has been funded at about 103% and it pays its monthly out gothat ispension to state workers on the interest itearns not on the principal this fund does not have the problem nj wisconsin andcal has and years ago we union member s got laws passed so daddy cuomo couldnt go dipping into it same thing ju;nior tries to do and anyone who knows me or others like me knows i /we arned every penny of our pesnions fighting crime in this state

[JGRobinson]

Its never been the employees fault when budgets get busted, its the negotiators and legislators that sell us short by not doing the math. Cost isn't their issue, they pass that on to the next guy, its all about taking care of constituents, not citizens. That must end and now. It may be your cronies that fund your election and your constituents that vote you in, but it is the entire citezenry of your district that you are required by law to represent.

Shifting Public jobs to the private sector has proven to be both sustainable and effective. The ARC's provide services that are second to none at half the cost of the State or less. They employ thousands and help many tens of thousands of disabled individuals have great lives in their own communities. Their ranks are filled with all walks of life and will employ those that no longer hold public Sector jobs because of total system failure by the State and Federal Government.

Its no different than the private sector workers displaced by a shifting economy brought on by a global workforce. Find a new job, learn a new skill, do something that you've never done before and you will survive if not thrive in the change. Cant fight the empty bank accounts at home or in Albany anymore, they wont grow by wishen and hopen, just Doing!