Why does our district have one of the highest tax rates in Brookhaven?
**Because you have growing enrollment, more special ed requriements and zero growth in tax base (i.e. commercial/industrial). You also take more land off the tax rolls with each open space purchase, which means sombody else pays the bill.
If you raise my taxes 25% and place the money in a reserve fund, are you stealing?
**No, because you should always have a reserve. Besides, it's not an endless reserve as you can only have 4% of your bduget amount as unallocated.
If you pay down the tax rate using reserve funds, what happens when there's no money?
**You raise the tax levy or cut 25% of the teachers and have 32 kids per class.
How much has the unappropriated fund and reserve fund decreased over last 3 years?
**Better question is to ask how you plan to consolidate services, etc. with other districts. Also, how will you work with community leaders in getting Albany to give us our fair share of aid? Fund balances will increase and decrease as necessary and people should not obsess about them, yet for some reason we think that they are endless and will cover us forever.
How do you plan on replacing the $1.6 million one shot revenue used to pay down the tax rate?
**This requires someone with a vision of 3 to 5 years out, and no school board wants to commit to any sort of long term plan due to "too many intangibles" like state aid. Fact of the matter is that you can probably caculate your teacher costs for the next 10 years due to contract terms and some very basic assumptions (i.e. % increase in health care costs). Now, factor in a slight decline of state aid over the next 5 years and see that everyone should expect 4-6% tax increases across the coming 5 years.
This is reality, yet no one will ever stand up and say it. And no, teacher salaries are not the big bad wolf, it's the continual decline in state aid and increase in unfunded state mandated requirements (yes, this is special ed folks) that are the primary cause of this.
Until people get involved and stand up for the district, none of this will ever change.
Why does our district have one of the highest tax rates in Brookhaven?
**Because you have growing enrollment, more special ed requriements and zero growth in tax base (i.e. commercial/industrial). You also take more land off the tax rolls with each open space purchase, which means sombody else pays the bill.
If you raise my taxes 25% and place the money in a reserve fund, are you stealing?
**No, because you should always have a reserve. Besides, it's not an endless reserve as you can only have 4% of your bduget amount as unallocated.
If you pay down the tax rate using reserve funds, what happens when there's no money?
**You raise the tax levy or cut 25% of the teachers and have 32 kids per class.
How much has the unappropriated fund and reserve fund decreased over last 3 years?
**Better question is to ask how you plan to consolidate services, etc. with other districts. Also, how will you work with community leaders in getting Albany to give us our fair share of aid? Fund balances will increase and decrease as necessary and people should not obsess about them, yet for some reason we think that they are endless and will cover us forever.
How do you plan on replacing the $1.6 million one shot revenue used to pay down the tax rate?
**This requires someone with a vision of 3 to 5 years out, and no school board wants to commit to any sort of long term plan due to "too many intangibles" like state aid. Fact of the matter is that you can probably caculate your teacher costs for the next 10 years due to contract terms and some very basic assumptions (i.e. % increase in health care costs). Now, factor in a slight decline of state aid over the next 5 years and see that everyone should expect 4-6% tax increases across the coming 5 years.
This is reality, yet no one will ever stand up and say it. And no, teacher salaries are not the big bad wolf, it's the continual decline in state aid and increase in unfunded state mandated requirements (yes, this is special ed folks) that are the primary cause of this.
Until people get involved and stand up for the district, none of this will ever change.
If you pay down the tax rate using reserve funds, what happens when there's no money?
**You raise the tax levy or cut 25% of the teachers and have 32 kids per class.
How much has the unappropriated fund and reserve fund decreased over last 3 years?
** ??????
How do you plan on replacing the $1.6 million one shot revenue used to pay down the tax rate?
****3-5 years ??? There is a projected revenue shortfall the following year. Without a short term solution the district would be forced to drain the reserves or raise taxes.
