Community Voice: Change the Culture of School Spending

There is an old school yard game called “Kick the Can.”  Most of today’s students don’t know this game. But old-timers do, and given the high cost of our public schools to the taxpayer, the old-timers feel the game is “Kicked in the Can,” until they “kick the bucket.”

For years, our state and county legislator and our school boards have been “kicking the can” on school issues. Hard decisions have been put off with feckless abandon. Voters also have kicked the can by their apathy, year after year, during school board and budget elections and by opting not to hold their elected representatives accountable.   

The cost of public schools is too high. A academic performance — the bang we are supposed to get for our buck — is too low.  Students are subjects of social engineering in the Petri dish of a politically correct agenda. The canard of the education cartels that “good schools are good for property values” is badly exposed by the free fall of home values. Present spending levels and personnel benefits packages carved during times of surplus do not reflect today’s hard economic times. The high cost of public education is no longer sustainable.

Spending must be reduced and the process must start now. However, the juggernaut that is the culture of tax and spend needs to be unraveled through long-term infrastructure reform, such as:

• Take tough postures when negotiating labor contracts and consider economic conditions in the community. Those who negotiate contracts for the district should abide by its conflict of interest policies.

•  Oppose unfunded state mandates, especially those contrived by state legislators to satisfy a special interest group.

•  Reduce staff through attrition.

•  Demand Request for Proposals for all contracted services. 

•  Do not quickly classify students as “special ed” simply to cerate additional teaching positions. 

• Increase class size to reduce personnel. Identify and dismiss students living out of the district from enrolling in our district’s schools.
• Support private education choice through vouchers and credits.

•  Consolidate districts and share technology and purchasing. For Long Beach, this includes reaching out to get Atlantic Beach into our school district.

•  Sell excess property for increased revenue. For Long Beach this means selling the Lido Boulevard property of the administration building complex, and close the East School to be used for administration and adult education.

•  Vote no for increased school spending at budget time. Vote out big spenders on the school board.  Be sure to vote! Don’t leave it to self-serving minions of the school administration.

The Long Beach School District has historically spent a lot on schools and teachers. The schools have been a mill for patronage. School board members have used their positions as a stepping stone for higher political office, and their stepping stones have turned out to be our stumbling blocks. 

Stealth bonding without transparency has been slipped by the voters, such as the multi-million dollar bond that includes new athletic facilities.

Despite a drop in student enrollment, the budget has increased for 2011-2012. On the other hand, the school board has crafted a budget that leaves our tax levy at zero growth — Long Beach being only one of two districts on Long Island that can say this. Zero growth is good, but now that Long Beach distinguishes itself it can take the next step: actually decrease spending.

Nassau County is now number one nationwide in the amount residents pay in property taxes, hastening the exodus of seniors from Long Island and discouraging young people from even getting started here.

Former premises that some things cannot change — such as mandates and labor contracts — are no longer being accepted. The old bromides that spending is “for the children” start to fizzle when spending on education is compared to spending on bloated teacher contracts and pensions.

The Tea Party movement and other taxpayer advocate groups, following their 2010 national impact, have rechanelled their focus to address unbridled spending on the local levels. The fight is on. A tax revolt is at hand.  “Kicking the can” must stop. If not, then voters will kick out elected representatives and school board members.

~ Frank McQuade

Editor's Note: Patch is interested in your viewpoint as well. Please send your opinion to josephk@patch.com.