Letters To The Editor

Cuts Needed

To The Editor:

After reading the article in the Garden City News which indicates that our school system does not intend to cut any costs this year, but will delay until the next, it is clear to me that our schools are not run like a business. They are run in typical bureacaic fashion without any objection by our school trustees.

Maintaining all administrative jobs which have been added during years of "prosperity" which will spend almost all of this years budget is sending the message "To Hell with the Taxpayers."

For example, according to Ms Foley, "curriculum coordinators" were hired two years ago but no decisions have been made on certain areas of the curriculum.

For years to my knowledge there was no such administrative title. We didn't even have assistant principals. They were added and gradually many other administrative positions were superimposed with little if any effect on the functioning of our school system.

Further, during this time we have allowed 18 year olds and in addition Adelphi students to vote on our school budget without anyone checking whether they were voting elsewhere.

It's time to put a brake on spending immediately, NOT in the next school budget year.

What do you think?

Joseph A Calamari

PS The United States is spending 569 billion dollars a year on education with little effect. We still rank rather low in comparison with the rest of the world.

PPS To my knowledge, the POA's have done nothing in the area of passing a Code of Ethics with teeth or they have not reported their failures on the other hand. The WPOA was instrumental in getting us the right to purchase flood insurance. Whether the purchase of such insurance may be appropriate will depend upon whether we continue to improve our 1906 sewer system and whether we install new sewers in areas that presently have none.