Long Island Property and School Taxes (Union, Brentwood: high schools, property tax, zoning)
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Do you have better ideas than cutting bloated staffing to lower the nation's highest cost to educate each student, "only" $26,000? Are we minting the nation's most brilliant graduates at this price?
There's 124 school districts islandwide. We pay for not just the super's salary, but the unlimited health and pension benefits until he/she croaks. I believe the surviving spouse gets partial benefits until he/she croaks. Then you have the assistant super(s) and administrators for every district, each one getting six-figs and bennies, and the attending support staff.
My town of Valley Stream has FOUR school districts, each of them treating themselves to duplicated high paying jobs because they apparently believe the local millionaires can afford it. This kind of waste is like throwing taxpayer money into the furnace to heat the building. Those cheery bulletins in get in the mail from the school district (that I pay for) don't make me feel any better.
How can you be an apologist for this and not go through your day feeling ripped off?
Stick a fork me in me, LI. I am so done with you.
I am not an apologist at all if you have ever read my posts on the topic. My solution (that won't happen either) is to drop teachers salaries instead. Drop the unions first. They fear losing their jobs - so they had frozen salaries. How many will say no to getting paid $70k instead of $120k vs. losing their job entirely? How many feel bad for a teacher making $70k? You're talking about 124 superintendents (their support staff is necessary IMO and prob don't make much). I'm talking about all the teachers union-wide. It takes probably only 220 teachers' salaries on avg to equate to the 124 superintendents' so that goes to show you where the bloat is. Teachers even in Roosevelt and Brentwood make 6 figures regardless of performance. That's the union for you.
You cut the superintendents but the logistics of their responsibilities to their communities (this is suburbia and funds are different everywhere) tell me that can't happen. It was once published/argued that superintendents are much like CEOs and should be compensated as such. Even though a $350k salary is overboard (most make $200k), I have no issue with why they are there, all of them.
I am sure there are folks out there that always vote YES for the School Budgets and always vote YES for any Bond that the school board feels is necessary to maintain the schools. Can one of you posters tell us WHY you do it? Why do you vote YES, YES, YES, YES? I am just trying to understand do you have so much cash available, are you independently wealthy or is it just all the wealthy teachers and their families that keep voting YES. There are so many people that are fed up with the school taxes but some how at the end of the day the YES votes win. Can you explain why the YES vote.
Because say you're voting on a 25% hike! like Shoreham Wading River SD. Of course, they voted it down. So they go to their (I forgot the term) back up budget, which passes without a vote. Shoreham voted down 25% so they resorted to the back up 23%.
Is this true? A lot of the Suffolk posters in this forum have in the past posted the complete opposite (eg. mega shelter, Huntington shuffle, etc.). And aside from maybe Babylon, most of the good Suffolk SDs would be a PITA to commute to Manhattan where the OP wants to commute to.
There are crooks everywhere. Bottom line, nothing beats those Nassau County crooks. Suffolk is the lesser of two evils, IMHO. No Harborfields isn't exactly like Jericho, but it's in the top ten with half the taxes!! Commack is a great SD that's often overlooked, with an IB program too. Northport has IB as well. Dollar for dollar, with an extra 20-30 minute commute, your taxes are half, and purchase price is lower. Not to even mention property size.
^ taxes are not half for Harborfields unless you get a shack. MLSLI doesn't lie. They are at least $11k for any decent house, which even you alluded to.
^ taxes are not half for Harborfields unless you get a shack. MLSLI doesn't lie. They are at least $11k for any decent house, which even you alluded to.
Absolutely. And OP was saying taxes she was looking at were 25k for school taxes alone, right? I just looked at a huge home today in Harborfields. Pool, half acre, very large. Taxes in the 11's. So, 11 is less than half. And, FYI, I don't look at shacks lol.
I am not an apologist at all if you have ever read my posts on the topic. My solution (that won't happen either) is to drop teachers salaries instead. Drop the unions first. They fear losing their jobs - so they had frozen salaries. How many will say no to getting paid $70k instead of $120k vs. losing their job entirely? How many feel bad for a teacher making $70k? You're talking about 124 superintendents (their support staff is necessary IMO and prob don't make much). I'm talking about all the teachers union-wide. It takes probably only 220 teachers' salaries on avg to equate to the 124 superintendents' so that goes to show you where the bloat is. Teachers even in Roosevelt and Brentwood make 6 figures regardless of performance. That's the union for you.
You cut the superintendents but the logistics of their responsibilities to their communities (this is suburbia and funds are different everywhere) tell me that can't happen. It was once published/argued that superintendents are much like CEOs and should be compensated as such. Even though a $350k salary is overboard (most make $200k), I have no issue with why they are there, all of them.
Teachers in Roosevelt and Brentwood probably work harder than teachers in higher performing distircts. And yes, the super's support staff and the assistant super's support staff do quite nicely with civil service benefits and salaries.
Teachers in Roosevelt and Brentwood probably work harder than teachers in higher performing distircts. And yes, the super's support staff and the assistant super's support staff do quite nicely with civil service benefits and salaries.
That sums up one of the many problems with the governor's repeated attempts to increasingly link test scores with teacher evaluations - many of the excellent and very good and satisfactory teachers at Roosevelt and Brentwood will receive 'ineffective' ratings. By simplistic definition in the mind of the governor and a few non-educators, if the student does not do well on the test the teacher must be ineffective in his/her teaching. Forget the greater impact of home life, IQ, student effort, school environment, and required curricula on student performance. Of course this will shield an awful teacher whose results will blend right in - -and if the tests are somewhat arbitrary in any case ---he/she looks just fine (or better).
Agree that the superintendents (and the assistant superintendents and the deputy superintendents and the directors and the assistant directors and all the other central office types and their ancillary staffs) are very very expensive across the Island.
And if teachers don't have to work as hard elsewhere, why is the scale the same across the board anyway?
It is not at all hard to imagine teachers at Brentwood or Roosevelt would have to work harder on certain things than teachers in higher performing districts. (And, of course, the fact their Brentwood or Roosevelt students may or may not perform better on the high-stakes tests may have very little to do with the efforts and/or expertise of the teacher)
Not always or in all aspects of teaching of course.
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