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Monday, March 22, 2010

Time to tighten belts in the district

Comment: Let's run the district like a business. Let's review the teachers' and administrators' contracts. We have all in one way or another "tightened our belts" in our personal lives. We have cut our spending, gone without raises and experienced increases in our health care costs. Why have the employees of this district been insulated from the global economy at the expense of the taxpayers and students? Folks, lets focus on educating our children and preparing them for the "real" world.

7 comments:

  1. The district has been run like a business. Administrators and teachers negotiate in good faith and in accordance with state laws. School employees are feeling the pinch of rising costs under these present economic conditions.Teachers have lost jobs and will lose jobs this year. In some cases maybe even their spouses have loss their jobs. To ask teachers and administrators to take a freeze, for instance, would cost an individual a minimum of $1000 in salary for the year. This would save the district between $250,000 and $300,000. If this savings were to be passed on to the tax payers, it would save an individual approximately 3% rise in their taxes or in terms everyone can understand, approximately $50 on a $100,000 home. As far as education is concerned, B-P already spends the least amount per student in the area and teachers have more students per teacher, than most area schools. Yet, B-P has the highest regents diploma graduation rate in the Fulton-Montgomry BOCES.
    So I agree, lets focus on the students and lay off the teachers and administration, who have fairly negotiated their contracts under the rules set forth by the State of New York.

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  2. I have no doubt that contracts have been negotiated with in the laws. My point is that they were negotiated durring "different" econimic times. This concept of "we" as a community does include the district staff. If "we" as taxpayers, parents and students are adjusting to the situation through higher taxes, more school work at home and lose of programs, then what is our staff at BP doing? They are not working longer hours, taking pay freezes or seeing an icrease in the cost of their health care. At this point I'll take the $50 decrease in tax. In 2003 when my house was first built my school tax was around $1473. This past year it was $2450. It's time to look at these contracts. The unwillingness to even open the topic for discussion (which is provided for in the teaching contract) in my opinion is nothing short of greed.

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  3. I agree with the original poster where the question was “Why don’t school districts simply hold the line on spending like the private sector?” It just seems so logical to people in the private sector until I became familiar with the Triborough law. I had no idea that this law existed in New York State. Please read the links for more information as it was an eye opener for me:

    http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2010/02/reform_triborough_cant_manage.html

    http://www.pressrepublican.com/0204_in_my_opinion/local_story_068221647.html

    http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20100321/OPINION04/3210346/New-York-s-Triborough-law-out-of-sync

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  4. Thank you for the enlightenment on the Triborough Law. My interpretation is that the law provides protection for public servents, in this case teachers, should a contract expire and a new one is not yet in place. I don't believe anywhere it says that contracts can't be re-negotiated. I still maintain that proposals for contractual amendments can be brought to the table by either the BOE or BP teachers Association.

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  5. Greed????? The teachers' contract was opened last year. They were under a different economical time when the contract was renewed and so where you and I. Have you offered to give back your raise to your employer as of yet? I haven't. If you feel your child getting to much homework, then simply don't have him/her do it. Skills that are taught need to be reviewed and practiced. I also want my child to be successful. What is the staff at BP doing? If you don't know that, you are not in touch with your school district. Take a look and get more involved!

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  6. I have heard that the teaching staff at BP had accepted a "lesser" medical benifit package last year and the admin. staff voluntarily froze their salary increase for this year. A step in the right direction, I agree. Stats show that the mean salary for a mid-career teacher in upstate is between 70 and 80K. Retirement on the average is at 57 years of age with a very plush medical and otherwise compensating pension. Salary increases range from 3-5% annualy. Not a bad deal for around 1200 hours of service per year as compared to a private sector non-public service employee of around 2200 hours a year, a much higher retirement age and no where near the pension. Given the economic changes we have all been affected by, these contracts are not sustainable and need to be revised! Simply NOT having your children do their homework when it seems to be too much, reinforces the already too prevelant poor work ethic in today's workforce. The attitude of "I need to be paid more to do more" is not what built this country. Unfortunatly, today's unions embrace this concept putting the greater share of the emphasis on the "paid more" and buffering the "do more." By the way, in 2003 I refused/gave back an 8% salary increase to my employer. The company of around 60 employees was struggling financialy and I was the only one to recieve a raise. Why,instead of asking for more, I did more. I had not recieved a salary increase for 08 or 09 and the cost of my health coverage has increased. Once again, I have managed to survive and have recieved the benifits of putting forth the extra effort with out regard for additional compensation. I believe there is a threshold where paying more does not get you more. I think we are there in our district.

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  7. I work in the private sector and haven't gotten a raise in 3 years while my health insurance has continued to rise. My employer every year has to search for a new health care plan to contain costs. The difference between raises in the private sector is that they are coming from revenues\sales received by the company. Raises in the public sector are coming from the people in the community. So, if those people in the community who work in the private sector aren't getting raises or are being layed off because of the economy and their expenses continually increase, how are raises in the school district supposed to be funded? If it gets too expensive to live here, who are you going to tax when everyone has moved? On the BP home page regarding the budget, it states:

    If the governor’s proposed cuts are accepted by the state Legislature, Broadalbin-Perth’s proposed school budget would increase the local tax levy by 9-14 percent to a total of $11,905,622 in 2010-11. For the typical district taxpayer, who paid $920.69 in 2009-10 school taxes, this would translate to around an additional $12 a month in 2010-11 school taxes.

    I think this statistic is wrong as the typical district tax payers house value is more than $57,000. According to the census bureau, the median house value for Fulton County is $108,006. For Montgomery County it's $123,437. For just the census tract that includes the village of Broadalbin, it's $155,900. So, the typical taxpayer will see at least a $300.00 increase in their taxes on top of the increase we saw last year. Our taxes used to be cheaper than Galway which was the reason we moved to Broadalbin. That isn't the case anymore.

    I am very involved with what the teacher's are doing and what my kids are learning at school. I am not saying that the teacher's aren't doing a good job. I'm just saying, they need to accept a pay freeze and contribute to their health insurance just like everyone else that is dealing with these difficult economic times. It's not like a regular company that can sell more products to raise funds. A school district has to tax the people in the community to raise funds. If this district keeps going the way it's going by increasing taxes every year, there won't be anyone left to tax.

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