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Editorials
Just after hearing how screwed I am as a taxpayer because of state and contractual mandates from the Lancaster Town Board, I attend a Lancaster Central School District (LCSD)Board of Education meeting and hear the same thing.
Tom Malecki, of Drescher and Malecki, presented a financial audit review that in essence declared the school district was in good financial standing with healthy fund balance reserves that could be used to combat the challenges that lay ahead. The revenues in the past year exceeded the expenditures; revenues were $77.9 million, expenditures were $77.5 million. Excepting for 2005, the unreserved portion of the budget stayed steady. As it stands now, the fund balance reserves are 3.9% of the budget while the state mandated position is 4%.
Malecki spoke on reserves of $1.5 million and $1.6 million that could be used for retirement coverage for the upcoming year for teachers and other employees. “We also know we will be taking another hit regarding the 15-20% increase for health care benefits,” Malecki declared. “In addition to that we are going to have our normal staff increases in salaries. I think with careful planning, using the reserves, that you will still be able to maintain the tax rate over the next couple of years. This is of course not considering any loss in state aid. We could be losing our stimulus in 2011-12. You have a good fund balance, but you have a lot of challenges ahead. Hopefully, you are looking out for the next four-to-five years in any decisions you are making now; that you stay on top of things.”
Writer Addresses Board
Considering that LCSD Superintendent Ed Myszka had recently gave a presentation on what cuts would have been necessitated had not the federal government stimulus money come along (that more than offset the decrease in State Aid for the 2009-10 budget), and considering the State is once again going to pull back more aid to balance its budget, the writer addressed the BOE on the status of the Lancaster Teacher Union contract negotiation.
Superintendent Myska was asked where negotiations stood and what was the union requesting that was causing the settlement delay. Mr. Myska replied that unfortunately at this time the BOE was unable to disclose anything because they were about to enter their third mediation session.
Superintendent Myszka stated that “the board members were willing to come in on November 11th, Veterans Day, to hammer out a contract but that the Lancaster Teachers Association declared they were unable to meet with the BOE that day.”
“That’s all I can tell you, that we are in negotiations and as such are bound by a gag order not to discuss it at this time,” Myszka continued. “If the District and the Teachers Association goes to the next step, Fact Finding, the Fact Finding Report becomes public – as to what both sides expect the contract to be.”
Chowaniec: My questioning on the status of the teachers contract should be obvious regarding its implication for every taxpayer in town. As you may well know the town presented its budget last week. When questioned on the budget, the Supervisor said it was ready and only offered that he cut a lot of things out of the budget to lower it to a 2.97% tax increase. Cuts were made to offset the significant increases in retirement and health care costs – mandated programs.
Taxpayers expect this board to act fiscally responsible when it comes to programs that are not mandated. You may think it appropriate to say “it’s mandated” and “that is nothing we can do about that portion of the budget.” As a taxpayer I look at being mandated to pay your tax bills, with little say. When I hear Mr. Malecki say you are fortunate because you have taxpayer funded reserves to pay for the skyrocketing retirement and health care costs, I as a senior citizen am scheduled to receive no increase in Social Security benefits over the next two years. My health care benefits have gone up as well. I have to pay them myself. I have no choice. I am mandated! I see retirement and health care programs that are far more generous than what I have, and where some individuals have neither; and we are “mandated” to pay for them.
I am petitioning this board for fiscal responsibility and when I question the board on the contract it is because salary, health care benefits, etc. are negotiable. The town believed they acted fiscally responsible when they settled their four employee contracts this past year’ and they probably were more responsible than in the past. Town employee salary increases will range from 2% for elected officials this year (and taxpayers aren’t too happy about this) to 3% for police. I would like to ask this board whether there is by legislation some act that sets some minimum salary increase for teachers.
Board Member Joseph Maciejewski’s response: “I think contractually that I can say what you are referring to is the step increase that teachers receive. There are steps that teachers are on and those steps average around 3%. So basically what we are looking at is that if we don’t settle this contract this year, next year or the year after, the teachers are still going to get a step increase because they are moving up in seniority. (They get this by State Law – Triborough Law).”
Chowaniec: “I just want this board to hear the taxpayers as well; with their expectations to receive like fiscal responsible consideration and that we are tired of hearing of mandated programs that we have to pay into and have no say.”
Maciejewski responded with, “We hear you.” Board Member Ken Graber added: “We wouldn’t be at impasse if we hadn’t heard you.”
Comments
I sure hope they are listening. I have heard several teachers express that they deserve generous salary increases because Lancaster did well in the Business First ranking. I don’t remember them giving anything back when they slipped in ranking or were on the CF4 list. I know of many private sector employees who were told to step up production and did not receive salary increases; in fact, had salaries decreased.
I have since learned that step increases average 3.3%; not bad considering inflation was flat this year. What does the Lancaster Teacher Association want? It certainly appears more than the BOE is willing to give and more than we can afford to pay as taxpayers.
And now we learn that Governor David Patterson announced a plan to cut programs to make up a $3 billion state deficit whereby school aid to Lancaster would be cut by $1.9 million should the Legislature approve his plan proposal. Now it could really get interesting. The teachers already got theirs, now it will be just a matter of time until we get ours – tax increase, that is.
God bless the school board members for the job they do for no pay. Taxpayers are disturbed that town elected officials are receiving 2% pay increases, that they should set an example in today’s economy and not take any salary increase. Perhaps the board should ask the administrators to forfeit their salary increases this year, to set an example for the teachers and see how that flies.
Spread the wealth? How about spreading the pain?
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