042304 At Bedford Central School District, it's `business as usual'

There is a culture within school administrations as well as school boards in Westchester County, similar to a "Good OI' Boy's Club". In the case of our Bedford Central School Board, there is a pattern of consistently proposing budgets with excessive tax increases, with little regard for the community in general. This is not private school as some parents think, and the community should not have to pay for every program imaginable. Maybe those parents should pay the cost of these programs out of their own pocket. It doesn't take more than a handful of pre-orchestrated people pleading their case in front of the board, and back in the budget it goes. Some of these programs cost a lot of money and affect only a handful of students. I think it should be mandatory that the school board be made up of 50 percent of people with no children in school, to give a more balanced view of the community. Have the students' performance increased by 5 percent, 10 percent every year like the budgets? I don't think so. The administration and the board need to work within reasonable budget limits, like most of us do, and stop using children to play on the heart strings of the public. It's about time the voters pay more attention to what is going on with the administration and the board and send a clear message, that it's unacceptable to be proposing these large budget increases in these low inflationary times. Many residents in our community who have supported the schools for many years are forced to move because of the extremely high tax burden. Let's all be reasonable, re-open the budget and get any increase to an acceptable level.