NY Times describes Long Island as an area in rapid decline! (New York: crime, to buy)
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Too many villages, hamlets, towns, etc. Just consolidate everything under 1 Nassau County and 1 Suffolk County. That would eliminate over half of Long Island's problems.
it ain't that easy here. LI people are entrenched with their school districts. People move to different towns for the quality of the public schools, unlike NYC (with exceptions). It would drastically change the value of our homes.
Many people in NYC send their kids to parochial or private schools because they are not satisfied with the NYC school system (only 1.1 million public school students in a city of over 8.2 million.) . That figure alone keeps the costs down, plus the fact that many NYC students use mass transit to attend schools.
JMO
I guess my thinking is that the creation of magnet schools would alleviate the property competition somewhat, because your ability to attend, say, "The Jericho School for Math & Science" would depend on your abilities/test scores, not your parents' ability to shell out $20K a year in property taxes. Yes, there would still be particularly hyper competitive lunatics who would be obsessed with moving next door to the "right" elementary school so their precious apple dumpling will be guaranteed that seat at Yale, but I think there would be a whole class of middle class and poorer parents who, instead of breaking their backs trying to afford a "good" district like they do now, would be able to settle in a more affordable area knowing their kids would have access to whatever they can earn through their own abilities and hard work, which is how education should be.
Magnet schools are usually in the bad areas. You're likely to see the AMITYVILLE HS OF MATH AND SCIENCE and then the idea is you get kids out of Jericho HS and into Amityville....and you send a kid who is a good student to Jericho HS to get an education surrounded by like-minded kids. That's how it works here anyway - the higher performing your base school is, the better chance you have of getting into a magnet. I live in a "high performing node" - if I applied to a magnet my kids would surely get in....and their seats at their base school would be taken up by some smart under privileged child looking to go to school with the smarty pants.
I'm on board with the folks who have suggested consolidation, especially when it comes to the schools. We have more individual school districts on Long Island than some places have in their entire state. Every one of those districts requires highly paid administrators, and negotiates their own separate contracts for things like busing, food services, etc. If one chancellor can run the entire NYC school system, I don't see why it would be such a stretch to consolidate school districts here. By my own thinking, we probably need six or so (Nassau North, Nassau South, Suffolk Northwest, Suffolk Southwest, Suffolk Northeast, Suffolk Southeast). The districts would end up with less overhead from administrative costs, greater buying power when it comes to vendor contracts, and it'd probably reduce housing costs to some degree, since you wouldn't have everyone who can wheedle their way into an FHA loan going insane trying to buy a $600,000 house with 3.5% down in order to be in a "good" district. I also think the larger districts would then have the luxury of developing magnet schools at the high school level, much like in NYC and other metro areas, so that students would actually be better served than they are under the current system, which provides no choice at all for anyone whose parents can't afford both property taxes of $10K+ AND $10 or $20K a year per kid in private school tuition.
Of course, that will never actually happen, since the folks who can afford the property taxes in a place like Jericho would probably rather die than share a school district with a place like, say, Glen Cove, but I still think it'd make a huge difference in the cost of living on Long Island.
You can share the administration without combining schools and programs. Most of the excessive pay packages are delved out to administrators so that may help somewhat.
If you're talking about combining teachers and programs--eliminating schools--you're treading on the NYS Teacher's Union, very powerful with lot's of, er, friends in Albany, Nassau and Suffolk Counties. And you'll still be on the hook for the teacher's pensions and health bennies.
In reality, to address this train-wreck, Long Island's school districts need to be aligned more with those in other parts of the state and country. Teachers in upstate NY do not see any where near the pay those on LI do. The cost of living is somewhat lower, but it's still NYS. Long Island's teachers salaries, benefits and that golden pension need to be scaled back. It's admittedly a fantasy, which is why LI tax payers are so screwed.
I'm shocked at how many various villages and hamlets there are , same can be said for the Hudson Valley....just merged these places and your taxes will go down....by half in some areas.
A 120 mile long island is bound to have a number of villages, hamlets and cities.
Merging these entities won't do much. Eliminating or merging some of the special districts might.
Last year a group did a study on how much LI would save if all school districts consolidated at the Town level; They found that costs would actually go up slightly because of union members 'leveling up'. Then after several years it would save the average district about 0.5%. It might save a few bucks getting rid of some admin, but unless you cut compensation across the board, it's a drop in the bucket.
Those villages with their own police force still pay a small portion of NCPD taxes. So in a way they pay for two police depts. Your idea would actually raise taxes on current jurisdictions served by the NCPD.
Let's face it, the reason taxes are high is almost entirely due to generous pay packages and lifetime benefits.
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How would it raise taxes for NCPD services if we got rid of the village police? Instead, wouldn't the former village just pay the norm for NCPD taxes. I don't see how you think it would raise NCPD taxes. What current jurisdictions are you talking about?
It's more than just money. Having too many different villages and towns is completely unnecessary. No, services aren't better when you have separate village police, fire department, and sanitation department. As I said it my other post, I've experienced this and I found county level services to be better and more efficient. New York State has the highest number of civil workers of any state; we need more private sector jobs here, not local village workers. It's psychological and sociological problem as well IMO, probably the reason why Long Island is the most racially segregated region in the country. Like I also said, having separate village courts is beyond ridiculous and a complete waste of tax dollars, even if the cost is low.
School districts need to be consolidated. I don't care what studies show, it's insane to have 100+ school districts on ~1.4 square mile island. Anyone who is against consolidating school districts probably has a NIMBY attitude when it comes to sharing a school district with areas of different race and socioeconomic level makeup.
Last edited by ThinkingElsewhere; 01-20-2013 at 05:24 PM..
it ain't that easy here. LI people are entrenched with their school districts. People move to different towns for the quality of the public schools
What difference does that make. The property tax is prohibitive, so one can't even choose to send their kids to the best school district on LI because they cant afford it. Unless there's a great school district on LI with "cheap" property taxes.
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What difference does that make. The property tax is prohibitive, so one can't even choose to send their kids to the best school district on LI because they cant afford it. Unless there's a great school district on LI with "cheap" property taxes.
check out some of the postings on the LI forums. "should I move to Kings Park, Commack, or Smithtown? Jericho or Syosset? Which district has the best schools for special education? Math ? Sending high school graduates to ivy league colleges ?" etc etc
It's all people seem to care about when selecting a neighborhood here .
I don't follow the NYC forum all that much but doubt if the quality of the public schools is a determining factor when selecting a neighborhood (again with exceptions)
check out some of the postings on the LI forums. "should I move to Kings Park, Commack, or Smithtown? Jericho or Syosset? Which district has the best schools for special education? Math ? Sending high school graduates to ivy league colleges ?" etc etc
It's all people seem to care about when selecting a neighborhood here .
I don't follow the NYC forum all that much but doubt if the quality of the public schools is a determining factor when selecting a neighborhood (again with exceptions)
It's ridiculous, probably one of big reasons why Long Island is on the "decline." Even if it doesn't save that much in taxes (which I don't see how it can't, but then again I don't have the numbers on me), it's harmful socially. I've repeated this, Long Island is so racially segregated as well as being quite socioeconomically segregated. If you travel to other suburbs of US cities, it's no where this extreme when it comes to demographic segregation.
How would it raise taxes for NCPD services if we got rid of the village police? Instead, wouldn't the former village just pay the norm for NCPD taxes. I don't see how you think it would raise NCPD taxes. What current jurisdictions are you talking about?
It's more than just money. Having too many different villages and towns is completely unnecessary. No, services aren't better when you have separate village police, fire department, and sanitation department. As I said it my other post, I've experienced this ...
Where you're from is irrelevant to LI. And I'm not going to get into race issues. It would raise taxes on NCPD jurisdictions because then the NCPD would have to deploy resources to cover these regions. The way it is now these villages pay indirect taxes (sales tax, gas taxes, etc) and direct taxes (property) toward NCPD. That's the trade-off to having your own PD. Is it worth it? If you have the money, then yeah, it's certainly an advantage having your own Village PD over NCPD. I don't know about all PDs, but Rockville Centre, Malverne, and Garden City have excellent, attentive, 'specialized' police departments.
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