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041103 Why I must vote against the Bedford Central school budget
To the Editor:
On Wednesday, April 9, I will vote against the proposed budget for Bedford Central School District I am enjoined by conscience from voting to authorize the extraction of taxes, by force of law, from thousands of people - the public - whose interests are disregarded in a process run amok.
People in Pound Ridge have approximately three times the household income of those in Mount Kisco. Is it unfair only to Mount Kisco to spend $18,000 per student - 80 percent more than the New York state average of $10,000 - but fair to tax Pound Ridge because they can "afford" it? What happened to the idea that people who work hard keep their money, unless separated from it by due process? Is it fair to say Bedford is wealthy because of property values that constitute an illiquid asset with which one cannot pay for life's necessities (unless one moves away from friends and family) or secure one's future? Is it even remotely rational to spend, for example, over $120,000 directly and another $20,000 in fringes for two teachers in the high school (they earn some of it coaching and from summer school). Is it rational to then pay out in excess of $2 million to each of them in retirement pay, excluding a blank check for Cadillac medical benefits?
The deceptive statement made numerous times by our board president that we must pay competitive salaries is specious at best. This statement, now being repeated in letters to the editor from a Katonah-Lewisboro candidate, is straight out of the union officials' (a kind of Interlocking directorate) playbook and is made without scrutiny of its dishonesty. The districts we are compared to are overpaying salaries/benefits. Why fall for that propaganda?
Bedford's runaway spending of 80 percent above state average translates to $32 trillion PER YEAR. This is a rule of thumb comparison but clearly illustrates the magnitude of our financial management deficiencies.
While the board, insulated from middle-class financial realities, thinks inside the box that any spending for children is good, the public is whipsawed by the economy and increasing taxes at 600 percent to 900 percent of the CPI of 1.6 percent. Financial pressures on people with children in college or preschool are seemingly overlooked! Cuts to programs of $20,000 are made while ignoring the millions of dollars that a cell tower company has offered to pay for co-locating on existing district antenna towers
Trustees who were not independent, not objective and not informed have been put on notice by the new Sarbanes-Oxley Act relating to commercial organizations. Eliot Spitzer, attorney general, has called for legislation to apply similar accountability to not-for-profit organizations and stated that these organizations are far more lax and subject to inadequate scrutiny. That bodes well for a public that cannot rely on its elected representatives/trustees to even take basic training in school matters - something that other states mandate.
I pray that the public comes to realize their role in writing, not to the superintendent, but to their trustees, and embracing their role, as Jefferson said, as "the 4th branch of government."
Joseph G. Whelan Jr., trustee Bedford Central Board of Education