Trustee Sabia, Keep up the good work! We know you're fighting for us against a lot of opposition from the majority of the board. When will this board listen to the people?

What a joke. Waldenburg's comment "the excess goes back to the taxpayer" is absolutely false. Of the $10 million surplus, if less than HALF went back to the taxpayers there would have been a zero tax increase, and still there would be $5 million left to go to reserves.

Mark my word, what you will see with a "proposed 0% budget" will be threats of cuts to services and programs so that the PTA Moms, parents and students will go nuts and support a budget with a tax increase. When all they really need to do is stop overbudgeting by such a wide margin. C'Mon Board of Education...stop with the smoke and mirrors!

$5.75M from reserves were applied to the 11/12 budget according to the pdf attached to this article. The last 3 years, the sum of our tax rate increases have totaled 5.51% - the prior 3 years, 15.94% (TOH website has data back to 05/06. I'd say the board has listened to the people.

What I find just as disturbing as Waldenburg's erroneous statement, is the lack of critical thought most of the Board has with the smoke and mirrors the district puts in front of them. Oh...the district will say that if they don't increase the budget for next year there will be cuts because they still want to hoard and overtax the community and that they won't stop doing unless the community votes against any increase in the budget. This is not rocket science...the district has been spending about $140 million for the past 4 years and has not cut any programs. In fact, I have read that there is increased spending on special initiatives such as technology and more spending for the IB program at the HS. What about the fields and full-day K?
If they spend about $140 million, why does the district need more than a $151 million budget?
And the Union knows this too (in spite of what one thinks about teachers not accepting the deal)

Thank goodness for Sabia, Topel, and Thompson. They seem to get it.

At a time when most of the country is learning to do more with less, our local BOE wants to do the same with more. A manager goes into a budget process knowing what the fallback position is, what cuts would need to be made to survive without increases. A GOOD manager takes the time to perform zero-based budgeting, building a budget based on needs, not last year's spend plus a few percent. Unfortunately this concept appears to be completely foreign to McDermott, Waldenberg and the like.

It will be interesting to see what scare tactics are built into the 0% growth budget presented in March. If it is anything like those presented in years past, I'm guessing they will say that with no budget growth the BOE can no longer guarantee air in our classrooms.

Joe Sabia - keep up the good work!

It time for the Board of Education to educate themselves to the reality of business. The model they wish to create for themselves needs to be derivative of the private sector, which is not wrapped in a security blanket of constantly increased revenue. We experience pay cuts, complete loss of retirement accounts [no safety net here], taking on the work load of those who used to work along side us and were laid off, and the constant threat of the companies we work for folding. The only alternative to tolerating what is the current market value of our employment is to be without a job completely. Does the BOE understand any of this? And finally, how many of us taxpayers have our eyes on a move OUT of this hi-tax area? My child will never afford to live in Northport anyway. Educators, eductate yourselves, please, before it's too late for the majority of us.

Please look at the numbers in the presentation. There are increases in mandated expenses like the TRS and the ERS, so realize that an increase in these expenditures within a proposal to keep the budget at the same level as the current year results in a cut, somewhere, and that could mean a cut in staff or program. That is just a fact and if you think rather than react you would understand.

On another note, the BOE President needs to be specific in his retort to Sabia regarding the exact number that goes back the taxpayer. It should be clearly indicated on the official revenue statement of the budget listed under applied, or associated fund balance – this is the amount of the under spent part of the budget that goes back to the taxpayer as a revenue item in lieu of revenue from the tax levy. If there is a greater "savings" in the budget than the Associated Fund Balance revenue item noted, then that excess goes to either building the Unassociated, or Undesignated Fund Balance, or another allowable reserve, and does NOT go back to the taxpayer. We have a right to know exactly what these numbers are prior to voting on a budget.

Lastly, according to the Governor’s budget proposal, we have been provided with a significant increase in State Aid over last year’s amount. This could serve to either offset any increase in the budget without effecting the taxpayer at all, or serve to lower taxes with a budget proposal flat to last year. Why was this not discussed?

"There are increases in mandated expenses like the TRS and the ERS, so realize that an increase in these expenditures within a proposal to keep the budget at the same level as the current year results in a cut, somewhere, and that could mean a cut in staff or program. That is just a fact and if you think rather than react you would understand."
The above statement is a classic example of the smoke & mirrors to the community.
Cutting the budget is not cutting spending. Cutting the budget assumes the district spends the entire budget, but the it UNDERSPENDS THE BUDGET
If the district wants to "cut" it would have to reduce what it spends & spending has been about $140 million or less over the recent past.
What concerned citizen is saying is to cut the budget. Go ahead cut it to below $151 million & maybe there will be a tax decrease for the community, assuming that the assessed valuation doesn't drop,but that is a BIG assumption,better yet unrealistic as more & more challenge their taxes.
If the budget stays the same at $151 million & the district increases spending to $142 million they still have $9 million to handle the increases in TRS etc. & fund reserves etc.
Isn't that enough? Why do they need more?
If the district gets more money from the pipeline (as stated in a local paper) maybe with that extra money they could fix the ceiling in the high school.
The district controls spending & the tax levy, not the revenue. See through the smoke & mirrors. Be skeptical.

Northport, like other districts, needs to do a 5 year projected budget. Elwood is having its own Citizens Finance/Budget Advisory Committee, comprised of about ten active community members plus one BOE Trustee, prepare a projected five year plan. Elwood's CFBAC, created in 2004, long ago proposed a 5 year projection; finally, with the draconian action by Cuomo & the Legislature restricting revenue without restricting mandated expenses, the new Superintendent welcomed the proposal as essential to the future of this district.

But, this important step is really essential for ALL districts, since the public (& the unions) may not appreciate the severity of the problem until they stop looking at the next year, only, as if that financial plan was the only consideration.

But, it seems obvious that some of Northport's naysayer posters, here, need to have a better understanding of what the State has historically done to districts in terms of imposed costs which then prove to be out of any district's control.

One of the biggest cost factors, of course, are State-run pension plans, TRS & ERS, and the fact that the State created a sweet deal for employees regarding the level of their own contributions to their pension.

We could go on and on and on about State mandates, and the hypocrisy of some State Senators and Assemblymen who use their own smoke and mirrors to trick voters into imagining that they are solving problems, when they are really compounding them.

With all due respect to the Elwood school district, I wonder how the residents of N-EN would take to the tax levy increases seen by that district over the last few years:
09/10 N-EN=1.85%, Elwood=3.66%, 10/11 N-EN-1.48%, Elwood=4.04%, 11/12 N-EN=1.69%, Elwood=7.98%.
It is perplexing, all the negativity expressed here by the same dozen or so commenters towards our district. Tax increases the lowest in the last 3 years than they have EVER been in the last 20 - cries of poor fiscal planning. A district website that has as much information than any other schools I have looked at, if not more - cries of lack of transparency. A BOE who allows excessive public commentary at meetings that detract and limit the conversations that should be taking place with regard to curriculum efficacy and student performance - cries of keeping the community at arms length. It seems NOTHING this board/administration does is good enough for some of you. So sad that all you can see is a half empty cup.

Funny, before AM Truthful's last comment, I was going to mention how the N-EN's Board always uses "at least we're not like Elwood..." as an excuse for the overtaxing. I've heard that comment at least a few times at Board meetings and now from the sole defender of the BOE, AM Truthful. The same "dozen or so commenters" are likely the same people who have frustratingly attended Board meetings over the years and pleaded and begged for the Board to LISTEN. The excessive public commentary wouldn't be necessary if people proposing ideas to the Board weren't so rudely dismissed and publicly denounced as "anti-education", which is not true. And let's face it, the transparency sucks. Try to FOIL info from the district and see the runaround you get, if not a flat out, illegal denial. Look at the Committees within our district and they are "friends and family clubs" that go to great measures to keep out the folks who don't agree to go with the flow. Recently the Board decided it would begin being selective about which letters from the public would be included on the agenda What's that about? And Concerned Citizen brought up an excellent point about accountability of the budget surplus. Where is that transparency? Was it mentioned anywhere that AFTER the $5.75mil of reserves used to reduce the tax levy, the total reserve fund balance shot up to $28million!!! Btw, I don't disagree with everything the Board does, I just have a big problem with their approach.

Boy, AM "Truthful", takes a few comments, intended to be helpful to a district in which I spent twenty-two years (and still recall fondly), and responds by attacking Elwood.

You know, A-M, that it's easy to hold down your property tax increases when you have one of the biggest commercial property tax bases -- proportionately -- on Long Island. Elwood is one of several districts with a very, very small -- proportionately -- commercial tax base, and that means that we have to work harder than you do to hold down tax increases and yet preserve the quality of the education of our children.

In some years, as was true recently, that became impossible after the State radically cut our aid, even while expenses which were out of the control of our district, like heating costs, and electricity expenses, and health care costs, and State pension costs, and transportation costs, etc, continued to rise dramatically.

But you, A-M want to criticize Elwood's residents for supporting an unusually large property tax increase recently, and slightly higher tax increases previously, instead of dealing with the valid points made about how Northport could emulate the openness of Elwood's Board of Education, and its inclusion of community members in meaningful committee contributions for the current and long-term health of the district.

Why? What are you afraid of?

Joe Sabia for Board President

By the way, A-M, after I took early retirement in 2000, I began attending BOE meetings in other districts, in a Best Practices effort, as I felt that Elwood and its BOE at that time, were insufficiently open. I ended up learning a lot from Northort, in particular, among the 20 plus districts in Suffolk and Nassau whose BOE meetings I sampled. In fact, I began attending many Northport BOE meetings from 2001 through 2009, in fact in some years 1/3 of them, and in other years 1/4 of them.

So, I understand your district's strengths, and your weaknesses, and unlike some (hopefully few) destructive residents of Northport, who would prefer diminution of the quality of Northport's education, as long as they can get close to a zero increase in property taxes, I prefer to help Northport, and its BOE, learn and improve.

We learned, and we changed, and even Northport can learn and change.

As to the commercial property tax base, we'd be happy to "adopt" some of your surplus, but one has to wonder what will happen if LIPA succeeds in their effort to claw back on what they contend are overcharges.

Don't fear change A-M; embrace it.

Sabia for Board President

Jerry, You have completely misunderstood my post. Nothing in my comment attacked Elwood at all. I happen to think you are one of the FEW intelligent and objective posters here. I think the residents of Elwood's school district are speaking volumes by NOT spewing here and passing budgets that, let's face it, are more financially demanding than NEN's have been over the last few years. So defensive...

A-M, thanks for the clarification. I guess there must have been some nuances that escaped my attention.

I will say that I was surprised that the people were willing to pass so large an increase in May of 2011; the prior year our residents rejected the first budget, so it's not as if everything gets a rubber stamp.

But our Superintendent made a huge financial sacrifice in the Spring of 2011, and the Central Office administrators (but NOT the building administrators) also made big sacrifices, as did some of our smaller bargaining units, so that may have helped motivate our voters.

It is going to get ugly for school districts, until teachers unions in general, and many administrators, recognize that districts can no longer afford the generous pay and benefits packages of the past ten or twenty years.

I will be gone to less expensive jurisdictions before it happens, but I do expect significant consolidations of school districts throughout NY State, which is currently one of the rare examples without county-wide school districts (or at least Town-wide school districts) in the country. Aside from the hypocritical selfishness of older teachers and administrators, who fail to recognize economic reality, duplications of administrative positions and balkanized teacher union contracts are no longer reasonable.

Again, thanks for clarifying. We can make a difference.

I think that the biggest difference between these two neighboring districts is in transparency. Elwood lays it all out for its constituents to understand. They have their challenges, but they are (mostly) pulling the rope together.