SCHENECTADY Automatic teacher raises may hike taxes Estimate sees need for 6.6 percent rate increase BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
The Schenectady school district’s employee contracts could set residents up for a big tax hike this year. The automatic raises included in each contract will create a 6.6 percent tax increase this year, school board member Andrew Chestnut calculated. The calculation assumes that the district won’t get any more or less state aid and that the district keeps all current programs. But the district expects a largerthan-normal kindergarten class next year, meaning it will likely have to hire more teachers, buy more supplies and possibly renovate classrooms. And the school board is negotiating a new contract with the teachers, which may add more raises. The school board has already approved raises for paraprofessionals, maintenance workers, laborers, secretaries and nurses. All of them saw their automatic raises increase substantially, by 3 to 4 percent each year, through at least 2011. Without the raises, they still would have received an automatic raise of 2 to 7 percent each year. The new raises were added on top of those raises. .................>>>>................>>>>..............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00900&AppName=1
"If the district keeps all it's current programs"? Who said they have to keep all these failed programs? The high school offerings reading like major college. Get back to basics. What have these liberal goody-goodies been doing for 6 months? Starting the Alliance Party!
NEWSFLASH-Unless the School Bored gets off it's rear end the oppressed City taxpayers are facing a 20% tax increase. Teachers raises are only part of the problem. $6 MILLION for busing-$1 MILLION for busing kids to Albany Charter Schools. Get back to neighborhood schools K-6. 7-9 Middle Schools pulling 950 9th graders out of the overcrowded High School. The Obama stimulus money ends in 2011. Schenectady is the third most reliant on that to balance it's bloated budget. The $8 MILLION hole in this budget cannot be balanced on the property owners back. Stop the talk and start the cuts.
A school board member who is looking up the law and telling the Union that automatic pay raises are outdated?!? Wow, where are all the other school board members jumping on that bandwagon.
Bring that money back into the classrooms and out of pensions, healthcare, etc. Giving raises to paras and teachers in the high school where half the kids do not graduate is not acceptable. I'm all for supporting the teachers, but the students are being left behind.
Look....I'm clearly not for all of these union perks.
But who is REALLY responsible here? It would appear that those who negotiated these union contracts should have had a handle on what the increased cost would be year to year according to the contract and budgeted for it.....no?
I mean, this wasn't a big surprise that popped up with no warning. They should have planned accordingly. They saw it coming!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
A school board member who is looking up the law and telling the Union that automatic pay raises are outdated?!? Wow, where are all the other school board members jumping on that bandwagon.
Bring that money back into the classrooms and out of pensions, healthcare, etc. Giving raises to paras and teachers in the high school where half the kids do not graduate is not acceptable. I'm all for supporting the teachers, but the students are being left behind.
Where are the cuts? While every other district was laying off 20-50 employees {including Nisky} they did nothing. The couple people laid off were quickly rehired. The school attorney should be looking up the law. The school bored needs to start prioritizing and slashing. Millions wasted on new turf, leaking roofs and Deans. Mr. Chestnut was supposed to lead for neighborhood schools and reopening Howe K-6.
You change half the bored and NOTHING changes. Unless they start cutting we are headed for fiscal calamity. No one can afford a 20% tax increase. I could care less what some moron at the Teacher's Union who lives in Rozendale wants. The City residents are being slaughtered by these clueless liberals and their tax and spend policies.
Look....I'm clearly not for all of these union perks.
But who is REALLY responsible here? It would appear that those who negotiated these union contracts should have had a handle on what the increased cost would be year to year according to the contract and budgeted for it.....no?
I mean, this wasn't a big surprise that popped up with no warning. They should have planned accordingly. They saw it coming!
Sounds like Bumble is a "Conservative" School District Employee if there is such a thing? Maybe conservative about everything except there wages and benefits.
Sounds like Bumble is a "Conservative" School District Employee if there is such a thing?
Try this SCSD officials--Announce a layoff of 350 employees-unless the teachers union gives up it's pay increases. Let them go to the private sector like engineers and attorneys, as Mr Korn stated-lol.
Sounds like Bumble is a "Conservative" School District Employee if there is such a thing? Maybe conservative about everything except there wages and benefits.
I DO NOT WORK IN ANY PUBLIC SECTOR JOB!!!
My point is..........who the hell negotiates these union contracts? No different than the police and fire union contracts. They give away the freakin farm and then when the taxes start going up....they look at the taxpayers with the deer in the head light look. There apparently is no government union negotiator that has the ba!!s to 'just say no' to these unions.
Ya know what......the next negotiations should be ALL give backs on the unions part......and if they don't comply.....tell them all quit and go out and get a private sector job!!! (like that would happen) First...there are none and second....they wouldn't survive!!
Get my point here?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Try this SCSD officials--Announce a layoff of 350 employees-unless the teachers union gives up it's pay increases. Let them go to the private sector like engineers and attorneys, as Mr Korn stated-lol.
I agree. Here's a clearly failing high school and middle school system which is giving raises to teachers. Doesn't add up.
I agree. Here's a clearly failing high school and middle school system which is giving raises to teachers. Doesn't add up.
You're right but the problem as BT stated is the continue presence of School Board members with the inability to cut anything. Replaced one group of liberals with another. They fired no one. They refused to clean house.
A $170 MILLION budget for a pathetic district that graduates only 53%, is still on the State's most persistently dangerous list. The emphasis is never on learning. A feeding center. Busing kids all over town. Get back to neighborhood schools and eliminate all magnet spending. Teach kids so they read and write well. They can take scriptwriting classes in college.
Chestnut thinks he is doing such a great job, he now wants to lead the city. What a disaster!
The biggest disappointment so far. Didn't expect so much from the others. Bright guy who graduated from Linton but refuses to pull the trigger and fire incompetents. To his credit, unlike Ron Lindsay, he voted against the going away present for EE.
The best solution is to consolidate all 6 school districts in Schenectady County into ONE school district -- that would allow the new management to go back to the drawing board as far as the contracts go. Not to mention the millions of dollars that could be saved by eliminating redundant senior management positions.
George Amedore & Christian Klueg for NYS Senate 2016 Pete Vroman for State Assembly 2016[/size][/color]
"For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground." Lyndon Baines Johnson
Logged
"If the district keeps all it's current programs"? Who said they have to keep all these failed programs? The high school offerings reading like major college. Get back to basics. What have these liberal goody-goodies been doing for 6 months? Starting the Alliance Party! 
