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Problem not solved, because those hundred-someodd administrators are going to want raises next year, and the year after that, and they need to buy new shiny trucks every year, and renovate their buildings, and retain all sorts of other wasteful duplicaiton. Same with the water districts, and fire departments, and all the other vestiges of this being a rural island with small, independent villages.
The island has outgrown this model. Like it or not, Nassau is far more like Queens than rural West Virginia and it's time that people cease defending their little fiefdoms because it's driven our property taxes through the roof.
While we're talking about it, a single-payer healthcare system would go a long way toward eliminating our state's financial woes in that department (and remove a huge financial burden on private businesses, allowing them to raise wages and hire more workers), but I know you teabagger crazies think that'll turn the country it soviet hitlerstan so I guess enjoy those ridiculous tax bills.
holy common sense, batman! shhhhh, don't say the "C" word (consolidation).
you're quite wrong. A school.district is its own govt entity. If you want to lower school taxes, you do it at your districts level. You clearly don't understand how districting works in ny.
He understands perfectly and that is the point. Why on earth do districts of under 5000 enrollment need individual administrators and infrastructure to the tune of millions? Does EVERY town really need their own school district? Nice when they were potato fields, but now we're a "bedroom community of NYC" as I've read on here so often...NYC has ONE school district, we have who the hell knows how many (plus water, fire, sewer, etc). It is a form of corruption plain and simple. Layers and layers of unnecessary and expensive govt. that do not perform better than consolidated models with standard controls.
The unions have the power to stop these layoffs through concessions. But do the really high earners, ie the ncpd elite $150k plus club want to give up the $75,000 average they extract in overtime?? That's whose to blame.The budget is short $300 million dollars. Every homeowner either gets hit with a $700 increase in their tax bill, or a few people get laid off because the ncpd wants to keep their $150k plus officers rolling in the money. You don't balance a budget like this on the backs of overtaxed hurting taxpayers. I'm sorry, you just don't. The greed runs thick in these unions.
With the schools, there's not as much duplication as people think. The main costs are: salaries, pensions, health care and infrastructure. There's not much you can do about consolidating classes or buildings without increasing class sizes. Buildings are already at capacity for the most part. What are you going to do, bus kids from north shore to Hempstead? In what buildings? How much added cost will there be transporting hundreds of thousands of kids allover the county. Forget it.
The only thing you can do is change the pension system to be fairer to taxpayers, require higher contributions toward their health care like the federal government does and freeze pay.
Your math [and your logic] are skewed. Please,show me where the taxpayer will have a 700.00 tax increase. Anywhere. Don't MAKE UP the numbers, which you're apparently doing. And, what district is at or even close to true capacity? Most buildings were built in thee 1960's or before and are not even close to capacity. Also, please show me the number of police officers, or any county employee who is making 75K in overtime...Typical tea party rhetoric, long on wind, short on fact, bereft of solutions.
He understands perfectly and that is the point. Why on earth do districts of under 5000 enrollment need individual administrators and infrastructure to the tune of millions? Does EVERY town really need their own school district? Nice when they were potato fields, but now we're a "bedroom community of NYC" as I've read on here so often...NYC has ONE school district, we have who the hell knows how many (plus water, fire, sewer, etc). It is a form of corruption plain and simple. Layers and layers of unnecessary and expensive govt. that do not perform better than consolidated models with standard controls.
Strange that a Tea Party member is not for a smaller government, but I find this confused of conflicting rhetoric a common attitude of many who claim to Tea Party members. They’ll call for others to personally sacrifice, but if that sacrifice personally touches them, well now, that is a horse of a different color.
Maybe some forward thinking politician can visit some other areas of the country that have grown in last 25 years where it is being done better with less taxes to get some new ideas on how to remodel the LI government landscape.
He understands perfectly and that is the point. Why on earth do districts of under 5000 enrollment need individual administrators and infrastructure to the tune of millions? Does EVERY town really need their own school district? Nice when they were potato fields, but now we're a "bedroom community of NYC" as I've read on here so often...NYC has ONE school district, we have who the hell knows how many (plus water, fire, sewer, etc). It is a form of corruption plain and simple. Layers and layers of unnecessary and expensive govt. that do not perform better than consolidated models with standard controls.
Because that's the way you run a good school program. It's obviously working well on LI, there's no denying that. What's causing the high costs are what I've said throughout this thread. High salaries, higher pension and healthcare costs being pushed almost entirely onto taxpayers.
You act like NYC is an example of efficient govt. It's not. They have the same issues we do, worse actually, because of exploding labor and fringe benefit costs. Theyre laying off lots of teachers and other city employees and raising taxes on top of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by donkey95
Your math [and your logic] are skewed. Please,show me where the taxpayer will have a 700.00 tax increase. Anywhere. Don't MAKE UP the numbers, which you're apparently doing. And, what district is at or even close to true capacity? Most buildings were built in thee 1960's or before and are not even close to capacity. Also, please show me the number of police officers, or any county employee who is making 75K in overtime...Typical tea party rhetoric, long on wind, short on fact, bereft of solutions.
I'm not making anything up. You people don't seem to understand what the sh it hitting the fan means. We are facing a $300 million budget gap. Which equates to a 39% real property tax increase to close it. Thats a $700 increase in taxes for the average household. Understand?
Sir, if you don't about public workers doubling their salaries through excessive overtime, then I suggest you visit seethroughny.net . Or research it yourself.
You both are acting as if NYC schools are so good because its only one district. In fact, they're very poor for most part and per pupil spending is similar to the well run districts in nassau......and we don't have an income tax.
I'd like to see this proof that the cost per student in nyc is so much lower that it warrants scrapping every district on LI. Don't make up the numbers either.
Waiting on your reply.... (Not expecting one)
You ARE making things up, and it's based on fuzzy math that you THINK is reality. Show us ANYWHERE something that backs up your skewed logic about tax rates and true dollar amounts. I'm also well aware of the "See_through_NY" website, as well as it's own shortcomings as well. You might want to work on those reading skills as well, as I never mentioned anything about the NYC school system in any way, shape or form. Lastly if you think that some [not all, but some] of the most correctable tax problems on Long Island *don't* lie within the school districts, versus the embarrassing political panderings of several men in over their respective heads, then you simply won't get it. Rather, go back to your silly little tax party leanings which are both short sighted and factually wrong.
There comes a point where you just can't tax anymore. We have reached the tax saturation point on Long Island. We can hardly pay the taxes that we have now, while putting food on the table, let alone a 39% increase! Where is the tax money going to come from? Private sector employees are gearing up for more layoffs, salaries are still deflating, and the housing market is still stuck in the toilet. You can't suck juice out of turnip that has been drained and squeezed a hundred times already.
You either have to lay off people, or re-work the salaries/pensions/health care contributions to make the math balance out. Being that NYPD officers (for example) make FAR, FAR above what your typical police officer earn in terms of salary and benefits, this would be a good place to start. Outside of salary and pensions, the rest is all small potatoes and window dressing.
It's not that complicated, just look at the math. Either we cut the biggest item that is weighing down budgets (public employee salary, pension, and health care contributions), default, lay off people, or cut out aid to the poor and deal with the ensuing riots. Nassau County and NYS can't make a waive a wand and magically make this all go away. They don't have a printing press like the feds. Instead of crying like a baby and screaming it's not fair, what is your solution to this mess?
You ARE making things up, and it's based on fuzzy math that you THINK is reality. Show us ANYWHERE something that backs up your skewed logic about tax rates and true dollar amounts. I'm also well aware of the "See_through_NY" website, as well as it's own shortcomings as well. You might want to work on those reading skills as well, as I never mentioned anything about the NYC school system in any way, shape or form. Lastly if you think that some [not all, but some] of the most correctable tax problems on Long Island *don't* lie within the school districts, versus the embarrassing political panderings of several men in over their respective heads, then you simply won't get it. Rather, go back to your silly little tax party leanings which are both short sighted and factually wrong.
The county gets most of its money from sales taxes ($1 billion)and property taxes($800 million). There's no way to increase sales tax as Albany has made clear. Which leaves the county with raising property taxes by $300 million (~39%) or cut spending by this much.
$300 million/ 450k households = ~$700 per household. Is that clear enough? Now you show me how your math works out to saving us $300 million with your solution....... Wait, you don't have a solution, silly me.
Because that's the way you run a good school program. It's obviously working well on LI, there's no denying that. What's causing the high costs are what I've said throughout this thread. High salaries, higher pension and healthcare costs being pushed almost entirely onto taxpayers.
You act like NYC is an example of efficient govt. It's not. They have the same issues we do, worse actually, because of exploding labor and fringe benefit costs. Theyre laying off lots of teachers and other city employees and raising taxes on top of it.
I'm not making anything up. You people don't seem to understand what the sh it hitting the fan means. We are facing a $300 million budget gap. Which equates to a 39% real property tax increase to close it. Thats a $700 increase in taxes for the average household. Understand?
Sir, if you don't about public workers doubling their salaries through excessive overtime, then I suggest you visit seethroughny.net . Or research it yourself.
You both are acting as if NYC schools are so good because its only one district. In fact, they're very poor for most part and per pupil spending is similar to the well run districts in nassau......and we don't have an income tax.
I'd like to see this proof that the cost per student in nyc is so much lower that it warrants scrapping every district on LI. Don't make up the numbers either.
Waiting on your reply.... (Not expecting one)
C'mon, use some common sense. Do Levittown, Island Trees, Seaford, Plainedge, Bethpage ALL need total administrator slates to function adequately? Are these community's priorities really THAT different?
Admins, shared facilities and equipment, volume purchasing benefits, technology....alll obvious expense reduction candidates with NO reduction in educational performance.
Mangano is doing a great job. Someone has to clean up the mess, the gluttony over the last 20 years. He's not a bad guy for doing this. If it were suozzi he would have raised taxes thirty percent. 25% toward health care is about in line with private sector and the federal government employees. They were paying 0 toward it until this budget.
Tax Revolt. We cannot take any more tax increases. Thank you Ed.
I give him credit for reducing payroll, but you should thank NIFA more than Mangano. There is not one thing he can do about the union contracts in place without NIFA's participation and he started out by wasting taxpayer money on both sides of the street by suing NIFA right after his ludicrous proposal "demanding" union givebacks.
He was ready to push the issue down the road yet again by selling off county property and rents at Mitchel field, and not even one month ago he was putting the county in even more debt by floating a bond for the coliseum.
Obviously the county is incapable of handling the budget, that is why Mangano along and NIFA have hired outside help.
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