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County wide school districts are fairly common in most other states. What isn't common is each small town having their own little fiefdom. There are many high performing school districts in other states that are county run districts. We should look at the money spent per pupil and compare the academic results of other districts that are county run. Why these budgets pass year after year is perplexing. It's like self flagellation.
County wide school districts are fairly common in most other states. What isn't common is each small town having their own little fiefdom. There are many high performing school districts in other states that are county run districts. We should look at the money spent per pupil and compare the academic results of other districts that are county run. Why these budgets pass year after year is perplexing. It's like self flagellation.
It is called intimidation and fear. My former district hosted a children's Ice cream social that night to get the parents back to school to vote. Think about what gets cut. After school programs, buses, sports teams etc. Not once have I ever seen any of the perks given to teachers and administrators cut, not ever.
Before I inflame any teacher here, I was a teacher until I moved and could not get my job back when I came back. I am the first one to say teaching is not easy, not at all, but $50 and hour for audience control (ticket taking at events) is a perk you could forgo. Just one example. I could go on.
Still waiting for anything resembling math to show it will effectively lower our taxes any decent amount. The number of overpaid teachers and what we're paying for their benefits is what the burden is made up of. This is undeniable and proven with the various budgets made available to us. The much smaller number - the percentage of admins being removed - will hardly put a dent in the overall number we pay out. It's great that consolidating districts without detrimental effect to our schools can work, but how exactly will that reduce what they collect from us if it's all in the tens-of-thousands of teachers' - their salaries & benefits?
Just to throw an estimate out there, if you remove 6 admins from each of our 120+ districts, that's still less than 2% removed from the overall salary picture. -15 each district and it's only 4%. Teachers vastly outnumber admins - it is of little effect to remove admins and only the teachers would point their fingers away from the real culprit. Since the overall population is a constant and so are the number of teachers required (student/teacher ratio), the only variable is what we pay out to each of them. Yay multiplication. That is the only way to make any dent in the number.
A year or two or three ago Cuomo rolled out some incentives to consolidate. A couple of districts pooled their supply purchasing in response to the offer, and saved a bit. Not much else happened across LI.
Small changes here and there is about the best LI can do. Efficiencies may increase if and when there's massive economic pressures, such as tax base erosion, massive foreclosures, etc.
Getting off LI means it's okay to stop caring about how much of your money they're wasting. It actually feels good being free of it.
DING DING you nailed it. I’m building in a district with a huge tax base. And neighboring districts all have way higher rates. Why would I want to pay more so they can pay less.
There are also districts that own their own buildings and have their own buses....logistical nightmare to decide who is going to reimburse what if they go to county schools.
Someone here in NC asked about Town of Cary having their own schools. This is a guy from the northeast, mind you. I said you really think it's going to be cheap for Cary to buy schools from Wake County? And pay all the employees? And their benefits? Didn't we all move to get AWAY from that???
Still waiting for anything resembling math to show it will effectively lower our taxes any decent amount. The number of overpaid teachers and what we're paying for their benefits is what the burden is made up of. This is undeniable and proven with the various budgets made available to us. The much smaller number - the percentage of admins being removed - will hardly put a dent in the overall number we pay out. It's great that consolidating districts without detrimental effect to our schools can work, but how exactly will that reduce what they collect from us if it's all in the tens-of-thousands of teachers' - their salaries & benefits?
Just to throw an estimate out there, if you remove 6 admins from each of our 120+ districts, that's still less than 2% removed from the overall salary picture. -15 each district and it's only 4%. Teachers vastly outnumber admins - it is of little effect to remove admins and only the teachers would point their fingers away from the real culprit. Since the overall population is a constant and so are the number of teachers required (student/teacher ratio), the only variable is what we pay out to each of them. Yay multiplication. That is the only way to make any dent in the number.
I admit that I am a bit light on the details, but as I understand how this works, it will be over time. In VA, where this was done, it started with the admins and the volume buying power. Then it progressed to the teacher level and was accomplished by the total number of students per class. Say for example, there are several schools that are over the limit in terms of teacher/pupil ratio so that necessitates a second class of that grade. Once the districts are consolidated that number will decrease due to the number of individual classes that are combined and then a teacher previously protected via contract will be able to be excised. Of course, this also gets into bussing and a whole host of other problems for the little snowflakes, who might be separated from friends etc.
All schools should be tuition based.
Maybe some grants or tax breaks for the less fortunate to a degree. Otherwise, can't afford it then it's self education or home schooling.
long island is a disaster and that is why everyone on it is angry. that is why the rents are high, the property taxes are high, and everyone on the street is high.
im considered upper class, so I can tank those hikes, but they definately won't get the middle class back. for the town board this must not be an issue since they are doing jack squat about the taxes, which they should be lowering if they wanted people to come, so it is clear that they want the middle class average joe, out.
And you know what is funny? The middle class goes online and roots for the people who are trying to kick them out! Isn't it funny?
You know what New York City does? They tax the renters so that the property owners arent feeling the burden. That is why the price of long island homes was super high before, and now, just L.O.L. every town has either disatorous small homes, or illegals walking all over.
hiring more cops is like putting more layers of bandaid. Cuomo in NYC fixed the bleeding, and long island is getting everyone from the hood to go there.
but wait for the haters and angry people here to call me a troll... they are so damn poor and cant do anything about it because they bought in a fundamentally poor design area.
IF THEY REPLACE THOSE IDIOTS BEHIND THE BOARD, THEN LONG ISLAND WILL BE THE BEST PLACE ON EARTH. Imagine if you can live in the north shore and work in Manhattan?
What does long island town board do with those taxes? That's right. They shove it up their a$$ and tell you it goes to schools. My parents in NYC paid 3k in city tax and I ended up getting a full ride to a top uni out of state. What does LI have? Stony Brook? What do the kids do there? Go to PJ and watch the sunset and their life go by?
Li Schools suck balls compared to the city, which sucks too, not that it matters because a kid who is born a rock will always be a rock, regardless of the school.
I have literally given up on the thought of buying a house in Nassau or potentially anywhere on LI. The only way you get a house in Nassau for below 400K is if its in a bad area and requires tens of thousands of dollars worth of work. I recently saw what looked like a small starter home in Levittown for 350k. The inside though? Completely gutted and destroyed. Missing tiles, parts of walls missing, holes in bedroom walls, bathroom rusted and destroyed. Every room was a horror story. It might attract someone who wants to flip it. Same story for a house in Elmont I was looking at. 350k and completely gutted on the inside with no property.
My grandmother purchased her house for around 70k in a very nice area back in the 90s and its now worth around 600k. Even if they had got continued raises compared from then to now they would struggle to afford a 1br. My mother purchased her last house for around 300k in 2000 now worth 600k. An outdated filthy apartment even in Hempstead now go for 2K a month once you factor in parking and other expenses. To keep housing affordable (30% or below) a 1br in even a bad area you need to make about 80K a year but meanwhile the average income for an individual is closer to 55k a year. Rents at prices like 1500-1600 a month are becoming fewer and even then you still need to make 60k+ to keep it in the affordable range.
As you mentioned multiple households on my street have 2..3 families living in them with illegal rentals. They need to do something with lowering the taxes because LI is quickly becoming to expensive. I think a start would be cutting out some of the administration and consolidating a bit. I could also go on about some of these elementary school teachers specifically K-3 making 120k+ a year to be daycare with 3 months off every year but that might hurt some people. Must be nice to have maybe 10 kids watch videos on a smartboard while the teachers aid does the dirty work, kids play on their ipad then go to gym/art/lunch so half the day you don't even have a class. What did your kid do today? Watched the Lion King on a smart board, played on an ipad then went to gym, art, lunch while the teachers gossiped in the hallway about their next raise. The things I have witnessed when I was younger and worked in a school district doing clerical type work. I picked the wrong profession going into IT. I do feel bad for teachers in other states but LI teachers in some of these districts have it made.
Farmingdale tuition based, never happen we have too many extra curriculars, whatever would the parents do? Now, we have a ice hockey team.
They can't of course read, write, or do arithmetic at the mean of NYS, but hey we got sports up the yin yang.
Me, I'm all in. I will pay for the english, math, social studies, science, and ridiculously- phys ed(as I believe this is a mandatory)
You want football, baseball, hockey, swimming, field hockey, darts, etc - pony up mom and dad.
Anything other than the educational part of the school day should be ala carte. Pay to play.
You want football? Soccer? Whatever? Pay.
Works for many parochial/private schools.
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