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Slavin calls for solutions to tax burdens in Masspequa Dear Editor: The real problems of education on Long Island are: Unfunded mandates from Washington and Albany... •Solution, all unfunded mandates are optional and must be voted on, when they elect board members. The cost to educate a child on Long Island is 66 percent to 77 percent more than in other parts of the state... • Solution, all aid to education must include a regional cost multiplier. Elimination of the Wicks Law that increases the school cost to build anything by 30 percent and doubles the amount of time it takes to complete the project. Currently one half of NYS lotto goes to the City; in school year 2006-2007 lotto contributed $2.3 billion to education, of which 1.1 billion went to NYC... •Solution, Long Island needs its own lotto where 100 percent of the proceeds go directly to Long Island schools, while still participating in the NYS lotto. Long Islanders have the highest utility cost in the nation. LIPA cost is 16.21 per kilowatt hour, the national average of electric rates is 8.91 ... •Solution, place solar panels on the roofs of every school, and all excess energy must be sold back to LIPA. One of the consequences of this could be that L.I. residents will never be asked again to approve a Shoreham nuclear power plant or a Jones Beach windmills project to give us energy. Consolidation is a must but it should be with local government, not another educational bureaucracy... • Solution, consolidation should be with local government. In the words of Tip O'Neil, former Speaker of the House, the most efficient government is the one closest to the people. This is important because if there is a problem we need to get to the people in charge and have them remedy the situation quickly. Only in education does failure get rewarded; if your students are not performing up to standards you get more money... •Solution, reward and recognize a district that is doing their job well; that is what happens in the real world. But the biggest problem is school aid to Long Island... •Solution at budget time every administrator, school board and PTA on Long Island should be in Albany and Washington explaining why they need the extra money and what it will be spent on. That way the money is "earmarked" for a program, as opposed to increasing administrative salaries. For instance, part of the cell phone tax "Federal universal service" was passed for education by President Clinton. We should ask Congress for our "fair share" of it.
Gary Slavin The writer is a candidate for the Massapequa School Board
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