School Budgets Are Out ( cost , building, school district)

[Jrprofess]

Given the release of school budgets I wanted to share some thoughts and points for debate. I happen to be in a district that is proposing no increase. They are also not proposing a reduction. I am moderately pleased that there will be no increase, of course this does not take into account other portions of the tax burden which will of course rise. I am not that interested in a teacher bashing thread and/or debate regarding the corruption/overspending in the districts, I think those have been talked about in plenty of other threads (not to mention building department scandals).

I am most curious about the state aid debate that I got into the other day regarding the percentage of tax support long island schools (Suffolk County in my case) receives from the state. As recently as the early nineties the percentage of school funding from the state was about 47%, by '96 it had dropped to 36% and now stands at less than 20 for my district. So, what has really occurred here? I realize the percentage of support from the state does not take into account real dollars spent by the state, other ways that school programs might now be subsidized, and maybe what mandates the state is now under relative to the past to support additional programs for residents and schools. This might have drawn these dollars away to other programs as well. But I welcome thoughts on the state aid support issue and if it does or does not play some role in the monster tax levies we bear.

Tawk amongst yourselves....

[Kbinspections]

It is ashame that it comes down to politics and fighting for every cent for each district.

The state has decreased aid, created this stupid star program that just wastes money. They give you a "rebate", reduce that amount to the school districts + the cost to admisiter it, and your school taxes go up on another line of your tax bill.

IMO, all government is wasteful, the higher you go, the more waste. I like to keep tax money as local as possible. Local is wasteful, county, more wasteful (except Levy!), state even more wasteful, the feds, the worst.