RSS Feed
 |
|
|||||
|
School board trustees have the power over your purse Dear Editor: The price of gasoline is about to pass four dollars a gallon, food items are all going up and there isn't a thing we can do about it. But the blockbuster expense, our local school tax is also going up, and we can do something about that. Most people don't realize that the five people sitting on the Massapequa School Board have more control over our pocketbooks than does the President of the United States. And most people don't even know their names. The Massapequa School District has a budget this year of $156 million and more than 80 percent of that will go to pay salaries and benefits. And guess what. All contracts covering salaries and benefits are negotiated by those five people on the School Board. That may explain why two of the seven candidates running for the School Board this year are married to teachers. One of them is already on the board and is asking to be re-elected. Under the present contract with their union, the top salary for a Massapequa classroom teacher is $115,280. Pension and other benefits add another 25 or 30 percent to their cost and in September, that salary figure will go up to $119,394. While state aid to the Massapequa District has gone up year after year, spending by our School Board has gone up even faster. Our taxes have gone steadily upward, and now the School Board is budgeting a further spending increase of $9.8 million dollars for the coming school year. This, they say, will require another tax increase of 5.44 percent. The salary figures for teachers mentioned above, are governed by the present contract with their union. It expires at the end of the coming 2008-2009 school year. In my view, this coming election is particularly important because the two candidates who are elected to the School Board will be directly involved in writing the new contract. Like the sun coming up in the morning, unions always ask for increases. What salaries will the board agree to in the next contract? And do voters really want two men who are married to teachers, participating in that decision?
James Stubenrauch. Massapequa
|
for larger version       |
||||
