Friday the 13th is a lucky day for all NYS residents oppressed by the NYS Legislature’s unfunded mandates. Why? Because the NYS School Boards Assocation (“NYSSBA”), a leading and influential voice for mandate
reform in this state, has signed on to the Mandate Relief petition. Here is NYSSBA’s description of itself on its own website ,
To read and sign the petition:
FOLLOW THIS LINK TO THE MANDATE RELIEF PETITION
Or follow this link directly to the signature page:
Please spread the word to family members, friends, neighbors, your local school boards, your local town boards, candidates for school board in this May’s school board elections, your county legislators, your NYS Senator, your NYS Assemblyman, and candidates for those offices in next November’s elections.
To find your NYS Senator and NYS Assemblyman, the NY Association of Counties will help you here: Contact Your Legislators
Before signing the petition, please consider what mandates are being included. Generally, I agree that it is unfair to force the districts to pay for things the state legislature deems necessary; however, I am concerned about the proposal that is embedded in this mandate reduction which would reduce the non-public school busing requirement from 15 miles to 5 miles. If districts follow this ruling, it would have an enormous negative impact on the private schools. The impact on the private schools would force more students into the public schools and would end up costing more money. Transportation to non-public schools is a nominal piece of any district budget. General support (administrators’ costs) and health and pensions are the parts of the budgets that are weighing on the taxpayers. These budget items are growing astronomically and add nothing to the quality of education. On average, the state of NY is paying $21,000 per student ($58 billion in taxes) for education. Where are the economies of scale that are supposed to come from the public schools? Consolidating districts and changing the qualified benefit retirement system to a 401K is one solution. Unions do not like this solution because they do not like the potential fluctuation in the 401K. They do not seem to understand that pensions fluctuate too, however, the taxpayer is forced to make up the difference. How is that fair? We guarantee comfortable retirements for municipal workers while wondering how/if we will ever retire – and retiring in NY in growing increasingly impossible.