Quote:
Originally Posted by JDMBA
Well, I can't help you with what is going on in East Williston. You can vote with your feet and move out, you will probably have less stress and lower taxes and won't have to worry how much the teachers are getting paid.
In all fairness I started to look at some of the salaries and wow. So, what's fair?
Teacher with maximum credits five years experience? Ten years? Starting with just a masters? What's fair? (I would like to get some perspective here).
|
What if everybody voted with their feet and moved out?
What happens when the property taxes are so high, that buying a middle class home on LI is virtually not worth it to anyone?
For example, recently I found a couple of homes in Levittown priced in the low and mid $200s ... yet their property taxes were respectively, almost $11K a year and almost $12K a year.
Who would want those homes, knowing that (a) if you make certain improvements, the taxes will skyrocket and (b) the taxes will go up every single year and in less than 10 years you may very well be paying double the outrageous (considering the value of the homes) amount you started with?
My complaint is that leaving things the way they are is unsustainable when it comes to property taxes on LI, and TEACHER AND ADMIN. COMPENSATION, PENSIONS AND BENEFITS ARE THE BIGGEST PART, BY FAR, OF ANY SCHOOL DISTRICT BUDGET, so that's why "teachers feel picked on."
I am not anti-teacher. I am anti-crazy property taxes!
It's not that I cannot "afford" it the way it is now. However, if they keep going up as steeply and quickly as they have historically done ... eventually nobody will want or be able to pay $20K a year taxes on a small middle-class home on LI. That's just common sense. Without reigning things in, that day will come and then what?
As for "what's fair" in terms of compensation, that's a different thing to everyone.
As I have said before, it's not the current salaries, per se, but the entitlements after retirement that are killing the taxpayers.
Once again, I do not advocate cutting pay for teachers, police or any other civil servant out there. I do not agree with furloughs, etc.
I would, however, like to quantify and qualify the "guaranteed 2 raises a year" that teachers have become accustomed to.
I would also like to end the lifetime entitlements of all NYS civil servants whose union contracts include things such as pensions paid for by the taxpayers, taxpayers having to "supplement" the teachers' pensions annually if they do not earn at least 8%, and paying for private health insurance (either in full OR in part) for them and their dependents for LIFE. NYS can simply no longer afford it.
Something has to give is all I am saying. What happens when in years to come NYS goes bankrupt and no longer is able to or legally has to provide all these promised pensions and benefits to retirees? Isn't it better to face it NOW and make the changes then leave people who thought they wouldn't have to save for retirement and wouldn't have to go on Medicare later in life twisting in the wind when they are retired or about to do so?