Comments

• On the article State Aid Restored to Northport Schools

  vera charles

  10:29 pm on Monday, April 15, 2013

  Gee whiz.

  I miss Patch for a few days and realize I was missing a new soap opera, written by vbug62, starring vbug62, and if you're unlucky, coming to your neighborhood theaters soon.

  vbug62 seems to resent being caught in earlier half truths, and maybe un-truths, so she lashes out personally at those who questioned her thought process.

  And, no vbug62, I haven't literally read the Core Curriculum, but I have read a lot about it, by numerous think tanks, and what is absolutely clear is that some elements of the extreme right (not conservatives, per se, but the truly radical fringes of the conservative movement) are tying to kill this improvement before it has a chance to flourish.

  There also seems to be some blow-back from dinosaur elements of the teaching community; I'm sure that doesn't apply to you, vbug62, but some of your sisters and brothers in teaching don't like change, and often try to kill it.

  So, there's a great combination of some radical fringes and some hidebound unionists that would prefer things just as they are. Nothing is wrong, thank you. We like keeping our heads in the sand, and we like doing things our way...and only our way.

  Sheesh!

  Reply

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  12:37 am on Wednesday, April 10, 2013

  OK, Mr Wone, will you then agree that the public sector employees should pay the same percentage of their health insurance premiums that the rest of the taxpayers are paying for theirs?

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  2:21 pm on Tuesday, April 9, 2013

  To Mr Wone, I think you misinterpreted what I was saying.

  It doesn't matter if the public sector employees deserve their health insurance; all employees, private sector and public, deserve their health insurance coverage.

  But, the ordinary taxpayer gets hit twice for rapidly escalating health care costs, because the ordinary taxpayer is the employer of those public sector employees.

  At least the ordinary taxpayer does not have to pick up the tab for the rapidly escalating health care costs of private sector employees.

  Is that now clear for you?

  We have to get health care costs under control, and that Time article points our a number of ways in which that could be done.

  However, it will require Congress to be more supportive of the people, and less supportive of the drug companies and medical device manufacturers and the private insurance companies, and the executives of all of those who rake in hugh salaries and bonuses, but you and I and everyone else on this thread are paying the cost for that in escalating health insurance premiums.

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  2:14 pm on Tuesday, April 9, 2013

  To laughing, while you casually dismiss Mr Wone's point about the 20% share of health insurance premiums of the new Smithtown superintendent, and while you ignore consideration of paying the right salary to the right person (e.g., 2x$ for a good choice, versus 1x$ for a bad choice), you are being penny wise and pound foolish.

  As an example, my own district had that experience when we hired someone who proved to be incompetent in the job, and then paid a lot more for his successor, but got a great superintendent by doing that; the extra money to hire real talent proved to be a benefit for both taxpayers and students.

  Please don't be shortsighted.

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  12:35 pm on Tuesday, April 9, 2013

  Holy crap, Mr Wone, where did your "blame Obama" rant come from regarding rising health care costs. Health care costs have been rising for the past twenty + years, long before Obama.

  If you want some excellent perspective, read the 31 page exposé in the March 4th edition of Time magazine, which you can get at your local library. It's called "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us".

  The well-researched article demonstrates how the American consumer has been ripped off, along with many health care providers, and that the "winners" in the game have been hospital administrators, drug companies and their executives, and medical device manufacturers and sales representatives.

  The biggest losers, of course, have been those people with minimal health care coverage, and of course those lacking any health care coverage.

  But all of us pay, and not only in terms of our own health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs, but also with what we have to pay in additional property taxes to subsidize the health care costs of public sector employees, like those we have been discussing in this Patch thread.

  You can't blame Obama, and you can't blame Bush, and you can't blame Clinton, or any other presidents; it is the collective fault of gutless politicians on both the left and the right, in Congress particularly, but also in each White House, along with the unbridled greed of insurance companies, drug companies, and hospital executives.

  Read and learn, Mr Wone.

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  5:58 pm on Monday, April 8, 2013

  OK, Joe, that's one district out of @120 in Nassau and Suffolk.

  Anyone should agree that a $60,000 raise (assuming it is the same superintendent and not a superior replacement of an inferior predecessor) is absurd and reckless.

  As to the 5% pay increase of the teachers (presumably, since you did not identify the actual bargaining unit), that could be absurd, but you provide no context.

  For example, when was their last raise, and were there any give-backs in trade for the raise, and what was the magnitude of those give-backs relative to the cost of the raise, etc etc etc.

  And, like others have tried pointing out to you, when the clowns in Albany (including the Governor, this one and prior ones, and the Legislature, and the State Comptroller, who is sole trustee of one of the pension funds [but I can't recall which]) have made personnel management and "negotiating" virtually impossible for school districts and their boards of education, and dictate pension contributions from each district, and so many other back-breaking restrictions on school districts, it is insane to blame any particular board of education for their limits of effective governance.

  Clearly you must hate your own school district's board of education, whatever that may be, and maybe there is good reason to want to replace some of your trustees, but you keep generalizing about all districts, and then make it worse by failing to identify the root causes of the problem, the clowns in Albany.

• On the article Former School Audit Committee Members Sound Off on 2013 Budget Process

  

  vera charles

  11:45 am on Saturday, April 6, 2013

  I believe that the Comptroller related to the regulation being discussed on this thread is the State Comptroller, and not the (federal) Comptroller of the Currency.

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  12:31 am on Wednesday, April 3, 2013

  Dear CC, I'm sorry that your district apparently doesn't have what Elwood has had for 9 years, a Citizens Budget Advisory Committee. The committee, at the time my cousin was on it (until they moved 2 yrs ago), consists of about 6 or 7 non-trustee residents with business or finance experience.

  They meet monthly from late Fall until around January or so when they sometimes meet bi-monthly and give input to the BOE (which always has final authority & responsibility under State law, anyway) and these are mostly open meetings. So, CC, it is really not done "behind closed doors."

  Now, any district has the assistant superintendent for business (finance) prepare draft budgets, often with several scenarios; but, CC, they are very rough drafts.

  The objective is to air issues early, and to consider potential modifications with their impacts and costs understood in advance. What my cousin learned, in his early days on the committee, is that there is not very much that can be materially changed in the short run.

  Some things are out of the hands of school districts in terms of State mandates, and State restrictions on BOE/District flexibility with employees. Some things, like energy costs are determined by utilities or fuel companies (except to decrease lighting or heating in winter), or like bus contracts which are priced by vendors.

  My cousin also learned that strategic planning is essential in materially changing the cost structure, and Elwood is getting there.

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  4:22 pm on Tuesday, April 2, 2013

  Disregarding your obvious intent to evade the question, which was NOT "who pays you?", but WAS instead a question as to whether you would "receive any commission, or any fees, or any other compensation, if that person you brought did buy the house??????"

  The correct answer, Former LI, is YES, CORRECT, that you would get paid for assisting in the sale of houses in the area of Tennessee which you are hawking on this Patch thread.

  As I said above, "I wouldn't object to your comments if it wasn't for your trying to gin up business for yourself. Ads,or commercials, should be clearly identified as such."

• On the Blog Post Declining Enrollment: Is It Time for School District Consolidation?

  

  vera charles

  1:07 pm on Tuesday, April 2, 2013

  Since you describe yourself, in a post below ("That is the reason I became involved in real estate here as a buyer’s agent.") as a buyer's agent, are you now claiming that if you bring a buyer to the sale of any of those houses that you would not receive any commission, or any fees, or any other compensation, if that person you brought did buy the house??????