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Rensselaer County Taxpayers Association

May 2000                                                                                                                                                     Volume 5, Number 3

And welcome your support. Your continued encouragement in standing up for the public’s rights is not something any of us can take for granted. The very basis of our freedoms is founded in our constitution and in our constant vigilance against those who would erode it.

One of the most important things in public service a responsible person can do is run for the school board and serve with a totally honest intent in serving the entire community, not just vested interests.

After all, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll stand for anything.


Well done!

Congratulations are extended to coach and teacher, Ms. Linda Underwood, whose Maple Hill High School teenage students are headed to the Odyssey of the Mind World Competition in Knoxville, Tennessee. The students outdid 12 other New York teams, a first from the Schodack Central School District ever to advance to World Competition. RCTA wishes them a safe trip and sincere good luck.


Consideration to Voters

In the spirit of fairness to the voters, RCTA respectfully challenges the Board of Education to include the following motion on the agenda of the second regular meeting to be held in May of 2000.

Be it resolved that all future public votes on financial matters be held when school is not in session, during the late spring, and summer months of each year. There is ample opportunity to do so.

Be it further resolved, that the Board of Education wishes to cease the dis-enfranchisement of residents who spend time in Florida or other warm climates in the late fall, winter, and early spring of the year. These taxpayers usually return to their permanent residences in New York State in time to spend the religious holidays (Easter/Passover) with their children and grandchildren. The argument that absentee ballots are available is a cop-out.


An Oath of Office for a School Board Member

I solemnly swear that I will have the best interests of the students in my school district in mind when I make decisions and vote.

I will do this by remembering that the primary purpose of a school is to educate young minds.

I will do this by remembering that the learning process does not depend on the size and shape of the school and classroom but on the skill of the teacher and the attitude of the student.

I will do this by rewarding the good teachers and working to eliminate the ones that are incompetent.

I will do this by voting against frills that are unnecessary for the education process.

I will do this by example as I vote against wasteful practices, such as running half-empty school busses.

I will do this by reminding the teachers union that they have an obligation toward the students also – and bigger salaries for less work are not fulfilling the obligation.

I will do this by seeing that they are taught fiscal responsibility by the way I always consider the taxpayer when spending the taxpayers’ money.

I will do this because America needs young minds that can think our problems through and come up with solutions. Our very existence depends upon a well educated citizenry.

So help me God!


The Choice Debate

In Wisconsin, ten years ago, the city of Milwaukee chose to implement the country’s first school choice program. This pilot program which allows parents the option to send their siblings to private schools has been embraced by the electorate’s recently re-elected three term Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Mayor says that choice is improving the local public schools, and he wants to expand its availability beyond low income kids to the middle class. Currently, approximately eight percent of public school children receive vouchers to attend parochial and private schools.

The Wisconsin program took hold because local leaders had the courage to take on the Teachers Union (a professional union?). Parents there responded to choice last year by electing a school board, pro-voucher majority, handing the professional union a crushing defeat. The thoughtful and progressive voters dismissed the sitting superintendent by naming one who is streamlining the bureaucracy, partnering with non-employee educators and opening charter schools. In recognition of what the future holds, the Milwaukee teacher union has opted for cooperation instead of confrontation. One battle has been won in a war to empower parents in the academic arena. Many more victories are anticipated.


Vote "No" on School Budgets

The Schodack Central School District property tax rate was $17.44 per $1000 assessed value in 1980. In 1999 the rate was $53.50. This is a 207% increase in twenty years. This is much higher than inflation and we doubt if most workers’ pay increased by this amount.

The last six tax increases were 4.5, 4.7, 7.0, 5.8, 4.3, and 7.3 percent. This too is much higher than inflation.

School administrators are smart, well educated, and highly paid. Their primary function is to implement the programs of the State Education Department, the Board of Regents and other agencies that my monitor them or make demands upon them such as the teachers unions, Questar, and the U.S Education Department. Their secondary function is to educate the students effectively. Their last function is to keep the tax rates down.

The pressure to increase education programs and to increase spending is great. Most of this pressure comes from state mandates, many of these programs are actually inefficient, not needed, and do little to educate the student. Every year the Schodack School District starts by preparing an "ideal" budget – what it would be if they were not constrained by tax increases. Invariably this always results in 20+ percent increase and scares the dickens out of taxpayers. The District then reviews the budget and eliminates spending until an acceptable tax increase in reached. In Schodack this acceptable increase is about 5%.

The main pressure on the District to keep taxes low comes from the budget vote. If the budget passes by a wide margin, they have a green light to increase taxes higher in the next year. If the budget vote is narrow, the pressure is to keep taxes low. If the budget fails, the pressure is greater yet to keep taxes low plus it imposes great personal workplace hardships on the school administrators, which they greatly want to avoid.

Given that education programs are bloated, inefficient, and often don’t educate, it’s a no brainer – vote against any and every school budget put to you.


Special Rights for Earlier Americans?

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal…" These are the opening words of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. With the substitution of the word "people" for "Men" we can all agree that these words are still undeniably true.

How then can we justify the current situation in New York State that earlier Americans have certain rights that later Americans do not have? These are rights to own and operate gambling casinos; and avoid the collection and payment of sales and excise taxes on cigarettes, gasoline and other products. The American Indians, known also as Native Americans, have these rights. Other New Yorkers do not.

How did we come to the situation where gambling is prohibited in New York State unless it is run by New York State itself via the various lotteries, under the auspices of certain Indian groups, or via narrowly sanctioned methods such as Bingo or Las Vegas nights? Other citizens who run gambling operations are breaking the law and will be prosecuted.

How did we get to the situation where in Catskill, New York State is contemplating a gambling casino run by a Buffalo firm under the auspices of the Mohawk Indians, a group that is not even native to the Catskill area?

Something is terribly wrong.

American Indians should have exactly the same rights as any other Americans – no more, no less.


Climb Aboard

The taxpayers express. In addition to local school districts spending your money faster than it can be earned, there are several groups that have pat answers to other people’s problems. A group of clergy are trying to sell the scheme that every prison inmate should get a college education. A piece in the TU, April 18 by Lana Jakes, says "State corrections officials say such a program could cost an estimated $6000 for each inmate and would come out of taxpayers’ pockets." Lets just figure how many hard working (non criminal) ordinary citizens are trying to educate their own children and find, the best they can afford is a two year community school rather than their life’s dream, especially when their youngsters give promise of attaining the highest possible goals.

It must become more evident to most as each day passes, that our government agencies and our so called education departments, schools, etc. are not making the best use of our tax monies but are simply acting in a confiscatory manner in order to exercise control, well beyond the bounds of decency or necessity.

Could we say they are not driving with both hands on the wheel?


Some Good News, Some Sad

The members of the Rensselaer County Taxpayers Association take pride in its media which serves to educate voters in the East Greenbush Central School District. Also, there is satisfaction that the voters rejected Proposition No. 2 (swimming pool). The reduction of 8.1884 percent in the total spending package should reduce the estimated annual increase in taxes on a home assessed at $50,000 in East Greenbush by $6.46. There will be other long-term savings in labor, insurance, maintenance, etc.

The sad news is found in the April issue of the Independent as a featured article on the front page of the paper written by James N. Baldwin, a member of the Board of Education. Read and learn. He envisions Columbia as a school of excellence in five years. This action would then make it a premier school in the Capital District. Mr. Baldwin focuses on many antiquated systems in the 27 year old school building and cited many problems such as classrooms that do not comply with state-size requirements. Is the school a candidate for a garage sale?

Particularly distressing is the bureaucratic statement to justify the $42 million expenditure. Mr. Baldwin wrote, "Instead of joining the many (not all) other school districts throughout the region which are taking advantage of the state’s incentive to improve their schools, we will subsidize their projects through our state tax dollars and get nothing for our own school and community." The fair way to distribute state funds would have been to give every school district its fair share, not the current approach of let’s get ours even if it’s at the expense of the others. Recognition by this board member that State Tax Money is our money is refreshing.

RCTA would like to learn the identity of the group hiding behind the banner of "Friends of the East Greenbush School Community."


Business as Usual?

It was quite a coincidence that the Wall Street stock market fell just a couple of days after a few votes squeaked through a local bond issue in the Columbia School District. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 617 points and the Nasdaq dropped 355 points. It should remind many and shock most that our economy will not be expected to increase forever without a correction. Neither can we predict for certainty our future in the private sector that supports and is the underpinning of our economic system. It may come about that tough economizing measures may be forced upon us if we do not openly recognize that we are all vulnerable to the effects of how we handle ourselves financially, as a locality, a state, a nation. The failure to recognize and understand that the producing sector operates with limitations and by its very nature is running all out all of the time, to achieve satisfactory goals. Nevertheless, the intricate Capitalist system as a catalyst is so interwoven with our unique ability to function that we cannot overload the system. Excessive spending and overborrowing will do it every time.

This equates down to the saying, "when you’ve got more people riding in the wagon than there are willing to pull it, the wagon stops." This is called a recession. If you continue to load it with non-producers, it will race down the hill backward to oblivion. This is called a depression. If these simple facts were taught in our public schools and the school moguls themselves acted accordingly, we would then have a reasonable start toward a useful education. Federal and State aid is actually "excess baggage" that must be put on the backs of those pulling the wagon. Public debt is unforgiving and must be treated as such.


Attitude

Is obviously a trait that is given short shrift in many instances in our public schools. It ties in with character and neither can be ignored in teaching young children. If certain attainable goals are not set forth, even in the very young, and the meaningless mush of the liberal elite is substituted, the basic groundwork is then quicksand upon which nothing solid can be built. Self-esteem seems to be the closest to any type of character formation they can come up with. Let’s just have fun. Last year Columbia High School set aside "character week", as though it were some sort of recent invention to assist in creating a more substantial attitude in students. There’s that word attitude again.

Character traits of honesty, dependability, loyalty, normal decency, awareness of the rights of others and knowing right from wrong are not something you pick up along the way. They are part of a total development package that leads to normal living in adulthood. Our continued existence is predicated on civilized human behavior. When you have the get along go along attitude in too many instances the results are not always creditable. On the other hand, we always need a "cause" in order to demand more and more funds to "improve" things. The thrust is not to actually fix things but to have the government appropriate more funds to "fix things". If they actually did "fix" anything it might put them out of business.

We can’t have that, can we Hillary?

Back issues of the Taxpayers News are available at:
www.capitalpost.com/rc/rcta.html

The City of Cohoes does not have school busses. They use public transportation or walk. No trouble.
Cohoes Resident

Hoosick Falls School District has three felons on the payroll. A lot of questions are being asked and not about budgets, among other things.
Hoosick Falls Resident

Bumper stickers! Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it.
Hampton Manor Resident

For additional information call:

Jim Gillespie: 479-3321 Bud Scheibly: 477-6056
Phil Vecchio: 477-9075 Roger Rounds: 286-2645
Dave Crawmer: 283-6850

The undersigned hereby wishes to join the Rensselaer County Taxpayers Association (RCTA). Annual dues of $10 are due on acceptance of this application.

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