School budget votes will be held Tuesday, and this year, Long Islanders are in for some relatively good news. School districts are asking to raise taxes by less than 3 percent, on average, compared with about 7 percent four or five years ago.
So vote your conscience. But keep in mind that a couple of budget-busters are heading our way in two years, and school districts should begin planning for them now. Federal stimulus money is expected to disappear by 2011. And the teachers' retirement fund has lost so much money in the market crash that schools' pension contributions will soon soar.
What can be done? Very little is happening in Albany regarding a property tax cap. Past champions of a cap - Gov. David A. Paterson, Senate Republicans, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi - should ramp up the fight or explain their lassitude. A cap would force the school system to make some hard decisions they are avoiding - such as how to lower out-of-control spending for bus services and special education. And it would give school boards extra bargaining power when they sit across the table from teachers' unions.
Meanwhile, anti-tax advocates such as the Long Islanders for Education Reform are beginning to focus on teacher salaries and benefits. One target is health coverage. While many teachers contribute 10 to 15 percent, some pay nothing. These costs, plus salaries, are a built-in inflater of school budgets, and they account for 70 percent of spending.
A look at teacher salaries turns up some surprising findings for Long Island. In some districts, more than a third of the teachers are making over $100,000. And the highest compensation is not necessarily tied to performance. The Central Islip School District, which has been cited by the State Board of Education for low test scores, has by far the highest-paid teaching staff.
By Tuesday's vote, of course, budgets are practically cast in stone. Voting "no" could simply lead to schools adopting a contingency or austerity budget. The contingency budget must be lower than the original - it can't rise by more than 4 percent or 120 percent of inflation, whichever is less - but several categories of spending, such as construction and accommodation for higher enrollment, are excluded from the spending cap. This means that many extracurricular activities can lose funding. If this was designed to punish unsupportive parents, it was ingenious. As this page has said before, the law governing contingency budgets should be changed to give voters an actual choice.
Voters would also be better able to exercise local control if they were given more information about teachers' contracts. Salary structures could be posted online, giving a fuller picture of the step raises, educational credits and other boosts to salaries. Parents seeking an excellent district might certainly be willing to pay higher taxes for better performance, but taxpayers should know the details of the planned wage increase as well as the hidden escalators.
But the most progressive approach for taming costs would be adding a new tier to the current pension system, already one of the most generous in the nation. While the teachers unions, which control Albany right now, are adamant against moving in this direction, it's a sensible, long-term solution. A new tier of pension benefits could retract some of the "sweeteners" passed in the dead of night by the legislature in the past few years - without taking anything away from current employees.
School spending, which accounts for 65 to 70 percent of property taxes in Long Island communities, needs to slow down so we can all afford to live here together - teachers included. We shouldn't wait two years for a crisis before taking action.
