So we are now after the New Jersey school district budget votes and a couple of weeks away from our own New York State opportunity to vote. Thank you to the voters of New Jersey for standing up and rejecting 315 of the 537 proposals. Now we in New York don’t have to be the first. Hopefully we can send a message to the school boards that we are done with the ever-increasing school budgets and the rising taxes that are killing us.
A lot of us are not seeing increasing income and are tired of the taxing districts thinking that we are a bottomless pit and cash cow. I certainly don’t want to see layoffs if it can be avoided but we all have to share the pain.
Let’s send the school district a message that they have to live under the same rules as the rest of us; a supposedly small percentage increase is still not acceptable. The goal, as in private business, is to cut back and do with less. The goal should not be to hold the line, the goal should be to return money to the taxpayers, cut the tax rate.
Last year when Dr. Sirois made his presentation to the Levittown Property Owners I challenged him to find cuts that are meaningful and to implement a policy within the school district of making everyone aware that even the little savings can add up. I have yet to hear from Dr. Sirois about how the plan is going. I can only make the connection that nothing was done. It is now time to let them know that we are not kidding when we said that taxes are too high and growing too fast.
Tom Caro
