Imagine if YOU Were the Newly Elected County Executive ... (New York: health insurance, mortgage)

[hotkarl]

Everyone is greedy and spoiled.
No one is going to give anything up. Teachers, cops, garbage men, nobody!
Greed and spoilage. It's the LI way. The "me" island.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Walter Greenspan

The residents of each of the 56 independent school districts can if they get off their duff and elect school board members willing to take on the teachers' union and roll-back salaries and benefits when contracts come up for renewal; and, if the teachers strike, fire them and replace them with teachers willing to work for more rational salaries and benefits.

Thank you!

So if the school board refuses the union's demands, school teachers will actually strike? Don't some public sector jobs not allow their members to strike? Oh well they do anyway ... I just thought of the MTA striking and they are supposedly not allowed to.

Can we actually fire them for striking?

Seems like so many times the strikers always end up getting what they want when they strike instead of being replaced!

There are teachers all over this country without jobs plus new college grads who would not have a problem with rational salaries and benefits. We would have no problem finding replacements, that's for sure. (I know a few on the C-D Employment forum I would give an application to right away.)

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by hotkarl

Everyone is greedy and spoiled.
No one is going to give anything up. Teachers, cops, garbage men, nobody!
Greed and spoilage. It's the LI way. The "me" island.

Problem is not everybody is part of the "privileged working class."

If all of us were, there would be no dispute.

Most of us are excluded from what they've got, and have to pay for it to boot.

The rest of us have to fight back.

[hotkarl]

Like people are pissing and moaning about not getting up to the 150k mark or something, then a guy like me who if I all of a sudden got a job for 100k I'd probabally go into shock.

If it were easy to fire these crazy salaried teachers, there would be an endless line of people looking to scoop up a job at probabally half of what they make.
Especially right out of college.
A 20 something year old kid getting a job making 50, 60 or 70k would be like hitting lotto.

[Johninwestbury]

Originally Posted by I_Love_LI_but

1. Commission a study to figure out exactly HOW to cut property taxes by reviewing other areas that do not have a big property tax problem and trying to learn new ways of doing things from them.

2. Call all union bosses into my office that are paid out of Nassau's tax receipts and break the news to them that they should not ask for raises in contracts for anyone until further notice because the taxpayers certainly aren't getting raises and they should be happy with what they have instead of greedy.

3. Put a moratorium on patronage jobs and insist that every single County job must be filled via a civil service test. (That would include ME not being able to hire my own cousin or something to be my new $100K a year secretary. I would follow my own rules.)

4. Make a study of what exactly illegal aliens are costing the taxpayers of Nassau County. Then use it accordingly to create county-wide regulations that will forbid any of that spending anymore.

5. Serious crackdowns on illegal rentals, particularly those that are severely overcrowded. This will help save lives, as overcrowding is a major fire hazard and will help discourage illegal aliens from staying on LI.

6. Make a county-wide mandate that all employees WHO GO TO PEOPLE'S HOMES have to be bonded by their employer or at least drug tested and criminal checked. If a contractor works solo, s/he should have these investigations done on themself. No longer should contractors be able to pick a stranger off the side of the road and bring them to a customer's house. No longer should sex offenders be able to start their own business that brings them into the homes of citizens and their children.

That's pretty much identical to what I would do, BUT, I would also add we need to increase funding for public transportation and make it more appealing.The traffic problem isnt going away.

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by hotkarl

Like people are pissing and moaning about not getting up to the 150k mark or something, then a guy like me who if I all of a sudden got a job for 100k I'd probabally go into shock.

If it were easy to fire these crazy salaried teachers, there would be an endless line of people looking to scoop up a job at probabally half of what they make.
Especially right out of college.
A 20 something year old kid getting a job making 50, 60 or 70k would be like hitting lotto.

More like hitting a scrach off for a c-note.

No offense karl, I dont know what your situation is, perhaps you bought your home many years ago but 50-60-70k is about half of what you need to raise a middle class family on LI.

Its nothing like hitting Lotto.

Crooks

[Mantaray14]

Don't forget about pensions. It may be the single biggest issue that state and local municipalities face today, and some places, like California, this ticking time bomb has already exploded. New York is just starting to admit the problem, but so far not a single "sustainable" solution has been implemented, just short term fixes, that actually cost the county MORE in the long run. It will come to a head eventually.

I know a retired local bus driver who told me his pension was based off his last 1-2 years salary, so he just worked a ton of overtime. He's relatively young and with people living to like 90+ these days, he will cost those taxpayers for a looong time. Now if thats the bus driver, just think all the fire, MTA, police whatever, that have been able to get in this kind of thing. It was swept under the rug due to high returns in the stock market for the last 20 years, but all these Pensions are now scrambling to pay these huge obligations. There is insurance for them, but it would never cover the losses - this could be a future bailout scenario and I think Paterson is calling special session about this very issue. I'm sure LI has it's own share of this problem.

[dman72]

Originally Posted by RiddleMeThis

Not with the unions we have in place. As others have mentioned with school taxes making up 65% of the tax bill, this problem is ballooning every single year and no sign of slowing down.

My sister is a county employee in NC and this year they get no raise. There is no money in the budget for it. And no one is complaining - they are all just happy to have jobs, and NOT having their property taxes go up.

My son is being taught by a very nice young man this year. The guy is 29 years old, has been teaching for 5 years, and makes $81K a year. If he works another 25 years, anyone want to hazzard a guess what his salary (and therefore his pension) will be when he retires?

The amazing thing is how many people are utterly clueless about this issue. My neighbor was talking about a family the other day where both parents are LI school teachers. They live in a really nice section of Garden City. And my neighbor said "how can 2 school teachers afford that house?" and I was like "ummmm - are you serious? It's not 1970 anymore". I had another conversation with another parent about a complaint she made to the Supt of schools here over the summer and she said she felt bad about taking up his time and I said "why, he makes about $250K a year" and she was absolutely floored. THought he made about $80K. No - teachers with 5 years experience are making that!

81K after 5 years? My wife is teaching in the wrong district.

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by Crookhaven

More like hitting a scrach off for a c-note.

No offense karl, I dont know what your situation is, perhaps you bought your home many years ago but 50-60-70k is about half of what you need to raise a middle class family on LI.

Its nothing like hitting Lotto.

Crooks

Well if the teachers are married and their spouse works and makes a similar salary wouldn't that be alright?

One teacher with seniority is currently making equivalent to or more than two working parents. And our tax bills rise ...

[I_Love_LI_but]

Originally Posted by dman72

81K after 5 years? My wife is teaching in the wrong district.

What district is that? Looks like the people there need to light a fire under the butts of their "school board" TO STOP APPROVING UNION CONTRACTS WITH PAY RAISES FOR AWHILE.