"DO-OVER" Tuesday Tomorrow

[Chris_Wendt]

Tomorrow should be 'instructional' for all of us, as tax payers in school districts with defeated budgets go back to the polls to hold their "DO-OVER" school budget votes.

Did the school boards cut anything?

Did they cut enough?

Have the tax payers had enough?

Are the parents sufficiently terrorized by threats of cuts if their budgets go down to defeat for the last time?

I have heard ridiculous threats of transportation cuts if a budget fails, which cannot happen under State Law. But there is no State Law against fallacious propaganda, to help pass a school budget.

What do you think will happen tomorrow?

Inquisitive

Chris Wendt

[Chris_Wendt]

Ten school districts held "DO-OVER" budget votes yesterday, and, all ten of those once-failed budgets passed. Some of those budgets had not been changed from the original budget that was defeated.

I am not sure what this means. Not sure at all.

In any event, all LI school districts now have passed budgets, and in the immortal words of Ernest Elmer Erdley as he plied the waters of the river Danube near Budapest in his small boat:

"Everything is Hunky-Dory!"

Do you belive that one?

Chris Wendt

[Michael Soethout]

Chris,
Hunky-dory, A-Okay or whatever you want to say. I don't get it, I agree many of these schools didn't change there spending plans much at all and they all passed!!

What is shocking and surprising to me is the apathy in voter turnout. With the exception of Levittown many of these votes had turnouts of same or less than the May vote.

In apathy in Westbury, my hometown is just disgraceful (with a BOE in total turmoil in Westbury) and Wyandach is just laughable with the lack of interest in their taxes and school system.

With results like this, it really makes one wonder what it will take for the public at large to get serious about real reform of the school systems of Long Island.

Business as usual, just keeps moving along.
Sincerely,
Michael Soethout

[Chris_Wendt]

Michael wrote:
"With results like this, it really makes one wonder what it will take for the public at large to get serious about real reform of the school systems of Long Island."

It is called the "tipping point", or the point in time when the amount of force applied to a standing object, the direction of that force, and the point where that force impacts the object, cause the object to tip over.

With 124 school districts on LI, ten failed budgets do not generate sufficient "force" to upset or tip over the status quo.
The other aspect of the force required to change things is the general state of budget and tax increases around the island. With most in the 3% to 4% range, the latent resentment or outrage of "NO" voters in most districts is easily neutralized by pro-budget sentiments of parents, resulting in passed budgets.

In Wantagh, where there is an active cross-sectional Budget Advisory Committee and community groups such as Wantagh Concerned Citizens agreeing to support the budget, passing the budget is comparatively easy to assure. But remember that tipping point.

I am specifically alluding to the ongoing negotiations between the school district and the Wantagh United Teachers (WUT) union. Should the district fail to wrest significant concessions from the teachers' union, and should that result in or even contribute to a continuation of excessive budget and tax increases, then Wantagh will once again reach its tipping point at some future budget vote.

If the general state of the economy and the combined federal and state financial situations deteriorate even slightly, a generally negative mood would pervade LI, especially, and the tide which saw 100% of school district budget pass this year could swing around completely, and generate a pre-disposition of voters to fail budget votes across the island even as early as next May.

Will school districts sit back and let events unfold, as they generally have done through the past century?

Or will some school districts, perhaps even Wantagh, step-up and exhibit some leadership and start serious working discussions with their neighboring districts about consolidating administrative and management functions, for example?

I guess time will tell.

Thanks for your considered response, Michael.

Chris Wendt