School Districts to cut programs - Greece a “perfect storm”
School districts are going to have to cut programs due to losses from the Brooks-Minarik tax grab.
From Channel 10:
Local school districts say they’re already looking to cut certain programs and activities because of the county’s F.A.I.R. plan.
Jeff Crane, Superintendent of the West Irondequoit School District, says schools are going to feel the pinch from the plan. He says they will have to consider everything from cutting field trips, to cutting classes like music or art.
Furthermore, he says, some schools may even have to cut jobs.
[snip]
“Greece School District is in the worst case scenario of all our suburban districts, they have a perfect storm.” (said Crane)
Greece could lose over $2 million a semester, and they’re going to have to raise taxes as a result. It’s a shell game.
Roger Boily, President of The Greece School Board, says this will impact taxpayers. “It simply takes money from one pocket and shifts it to another, what happens now is the county tax payers will see a slight decrease in taxes, in Greece and Irondequoit and other school districts we may have to raise taxes,” said Boily.
“But it is a FAIR plan because it is innovative”. New ways to steal money. Thanks Maggie.
people get the government they elect.
Now that the election is over I’ll get back to posting other school representatives voices via youtube. Anyone new to the site might need a refresher…
Here are access to 3 clips from the Eastside (ER, Brighton and Webster)
Roger Boily’s comments criticizing the Maggie Brooks FOUL plan are particularly interesting, because he is a former Republican Greece Supervisor. When read together with the recent comments of former Republican County Manager Lou Morin, the architect of the Morin Ryan system, it shows that even many republicans, once outside the incestuous Minarik advertising/fundraising circle, recognize the Brooks FOUL plan for the shell game it is.
Thanks, Bill - I totally missed the Boily connection.
I think that some of you Brooks critics should read today’s D&C before you continue to accept everything said by school officials at face value.
The State Comptroller’s report on School taxes did not exactly depict school administrators as fiscal hawks. He noted that school taxes rose more than twice the rate of inflation from 2002 to 2007 (meaning before the Brooks plan kicked in). Is it even remotely possible that school budgets could be tightened a little?
Also, Sandra Parker, President of the Rochester Business Alliance, wrote on the editorial page that the Brooks plan “was a reasonable step”. She also cited a Center For Governmental Research analysis which indicated that taking the intercept was a “responsible choice”. Neither the Business Alliance nor the CGR can be called shills for Maggie Brooks.
Maybe its time to set aside “Minarik Derangement Syndrome” for a while and actually consider the merits of the plan as opposed to swallowing whole the School Districts’ take without any scrutiny.
Nice try, John, trying to twist the argument towards whether or not school district budgets are appropriate. They’ve submitted their budgets, and the voters have approved them. It’s not up to one government to say that another isn’t thrifty enough. What gives them the right? The people have spoken in NY, and they want fat school budgets. If you disagree then campaign against the school budgets.
Parker schmarker. If it was a “reasonable step”, then why was it rammed through with no debate? Seriously, please answer that question. You’re a smart and knowledgeable guy, and I’d like to hear why that’s an acceptable (or desireable?) state of affairs. If Democrats did something like that you’d be apoplectic.
The Brooks-Minarik Tax Grab is NOT the intercept. The Intercept would have taken money from Towns, Villages and the City, too - the Brooks-Minarik Tax Grab just takes it from the schools:
read this: http://rochesterturning.com/2007/11/01/seeing-the-unfair-plan-for-what-it-is/
Finally, re MDS, give me a break. That’s essentially the same argument as that used by conservatives who dismiss legitimate complaints about the federal government (torture, etc) because they insist that the complaints stem from an irrational hatred of Bush.
That’s BS and you know it - we can have perfectly legitimate complaints about the plan and the way it was approved irrespective of our generally warm and fuzzy feelings towards the Republican Party Chairman.
Itchy:
It matters to me how big your school district’s budget is versus how big my district’s budget, is if you want to get a share of another pool of tax money I contribute to.
If your district is spendthrift and mine is frugal, then the sales tax money is subsidizing your overspending. You vote for the spending you want and I’ll vote for mine. By the way, even though I’m a child-hating Republican, I voted for the Gates-Chili budget and its capital spending plan.
Re: Ms. Parker and the Center for Governmental Research.
So anyone who doesn’t agree that the Brooks plan is a malevolent act against the children of Monroe County is a fool or a shill? I would not be surprised to find comments in prior posts quoting those sources approvingly in support of something you all agreed with. It seems to me you can disagree with the way the plan was presented and voted on, while acknowledging that governmentally, it has merit. That’s my stand.
Re: MDS.
Come on, Itchy, lighten up a little. I take all of these issues as seriously as you do, but surely there’s room for a little humor in it all. If you’re not careful, I’ll start quoting Rush Limbaugh about how liberals have no sense of humor.
I have a fundamental philosophical disagreement with you about how schools should be funded. I believe that they should be funded from the largest pool of taxes possible - better county than district, better state than county, even better federal than state.
So any measure which pushes funding back down to a lower level is something I disagree with as a basic matter of my personal politics. It’s of course more complicated than that, but that’s a big part of it.
The BDS thing - don’t know you well enough to realize you were joking… point taken, though!
I saw that this morning and have not had a chance to delve into it. It is a state wide report I really don’t care about Westchester county…
Can “stuff be cut”? Sure. Can a million dollars in paper clips be cut? I don’t think so.
The question is how the plan was deployed. See as you know John because undoubtedly you vote on it - each district passes a budget via an open process each May. if you are Greece sometimes they vote multiple times until the voters decide what they want to pay in school taxes.
So enter last minute Maggie and her plan which basically has zero fiscal effect in 2007 (not including prep for 2008) and cuts 2008 school revenue projections in half. Especially without consultation with the districts. That doesn’t sound fair to me. Now does it. All these “cuts’ need to be made up in the first half of 2008. Then there will be the painful process of the 2008/2009 school Budget discussions leading to a vote in May. Then there are the pending law suits and all that not even close to being decided.
A reasonable step. Geez - Like claiming the first step in a 1000 mile journey means we are almost there.
Like Morelle claiming victory last year because Spitzer and Clinton got elected or Like Tuesday night Minarik claiming victory when Maggie got reelected. It clouds some fundatmental local issues.
So - Maggie is running around passing the koolaid(r) saying things like schools always raise taxes. I think Chili actually lowered their levy.
Then she is running around saying Spitzer is going to fund everything. What is our NYS debt? Can we really count on it.
Innovative - sure as a political wedge forcing the state to pony up money otherwise they “look back” and maggie has an out for potentially raising property taxes.
I would have to look to see how the Rochester area schools did in terms of school taxes. Are they above 3%.
Oh and now because of the national republican party and its continued fiscal mismanagement via sub prime (school aid is tied to investment returns in wall street isn’t it) lack of oversight and focus on Iraq - Fuel costs and will increase further putting a burden on school districts.
OK - that’s it - end rant.
I’ll be back on later…
I’d love to, but it’s already in the bottom of my bird’s cage. Tell me another story John.
John - it’s the process. If it was such a great plan, why not allow the experts and the public review it, instead of ushering it through closed door planning and last minute voting?
Maybe the community would have wanted some review of allocation of money to schools - but the community would also have wanted to make sure the plan was legal, that their taxes weren’t going up some other way, and that their children weren’t hurt. The community doesn’t want to be lied to, by being told their taxes are going down when that’s not the case.
It’s the process, John.
We’re not going to have to speculate and it won’t matter what Parker or DeCaro have to say.
It’s going to court, and if proven guilty, Maggie’s got some ’splainin to do.
And if she broke the law, she should be punished like the criminal she is.