LyndaLarch 10538

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:13:00 +0000

It's Up to You New York A local radio station is conducting a poll as to what the unofficial New York anthem should be. They've pitted Frank Sinatra's New York, New York against Jay-Z's latest song with Alicia Keyes, Empire State of Mind. While I admit to having Ms. Keyes' verse "In New York..." stuck in my brain, is this really a contest?! I say Frankie all the way!

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:02:00 +0000

On the Brink Big week for Larchmont golfer Andrew Svoboda. http://tinyurl.com/y9gcaqz

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:16:00 +0000

Standing Room Only Last night there was a school budget meeting at Hommocks. The Sound and Town tweets that there was a huge crowd present. Good to see people taking an active interest. http://twitter.com/soundandtown

UPDATE: A reader, who attended the meeting, responded with a lengthly post that exceeded the posting limits. Here it is in full:

What was this meeting all about?

I attended the meeting and it is tough to classify exactly what it was about. The theme of the meeting was to reach out to the community to find answers to our “Fiscal Crisis” but it seemed to me to be a self serving effort by the board to pronounce that they involved the community but still are declaring defeat on managing our schools finances.

The presentation attempted to take the slant that we are in tough economic times and that is the reason for our schools fiscal crises, but in the next breath they go on to say that 97% (57% Salaries, 21% Benefits, 7% Debt Service, 12% Contracted obligations*) of the school budget is out of their control, well who’s control is it in?

How did we get into this mess?

The bulk of the costs are related to what appears to be a group of extremely poorly negotiated contracts and state mandated pensions. I have poured over the numbers and this is not an issue of revenue shortfalls but ever escalating expenses (2007-08 $107.571mm vs. 2009-10 $120.695mm*). Granted some were mandated state programs that were not foreseen 5 years ago, but the bulk are the employment contracts with ever increasing escalations that are not tied to the CPI, performance or any other measurable criteria.

Unlike the rest of the world, a school teacher can increase his/her pay grade by obtaining additional education and/or certificates. These qualifications theoretically should interpret into better education for our children, but there does not seem to be any evidence of that. These step bumps push the number up each year. This year for salaries the school board is estimating a 3% increase even with staff reductions. With what appears to be an average salary for school employees of over $65,000 ($5.654mm/863.05 staff personnel*) per year plus 21% in benefits and pension funding for what equates to a 9 month year for most employees we are paying the equivalent of $117,000 per employee (employee not teacher, this includes office staff and porters) on an annualized basis and on top of that they are going to see another increase this year. No organization in America is giving increases at this level when the CPI is effectively 0 and the system is bankrupt. In fact from 2007-08 to 2009-10 budgets salaries have escalated from $61mm to over $68mm (10% increase) and benefit costs have risen from $21.6mm to $25.74 (20% increase).

It is beyond me to understand how the school board in the last contract negotiations had projected so poorly the cost down the road. Were they expecting the tax base to increase? Where they expecting magic from Albany?

So back to the meeting, fast forward to next March for the school board vote…

Your school board will state that they involved the community, they asked the people of the community what they should do, they then threw up their hands and said sorry, we can’t do that. A budget will fail and a contingency budget with 0 increase will be enacted and services will be cut and class sizes increased.

We need bold steps here, or this district will keep going down the same path of reducing services and quality.

It’s fairly clear on the action we need to take:

1. Bring all the current bargaining groups to the table and demand a freeze in salary escalation in 2010. If the groups want to stand on their contract than we know where we need to be in the 2011 negotiations (and they are going to be tough).

2. Involve the state! I did not see a single representative from our district attend the “School Fiscal Crisis Meeting”. They need to understand that their vote is tied to their performance on THIS issue.

3. Look at alternative income sources.

a. We have facilities that can be leveraged for private events.

b. Advertising space on school fences to support local businesses.

c. 3rd party partnering to take “off budget” extra-curricular activities.

d. Private and Public Grants, every effort must be made to find the dollars.

4. Look at long term initiatives and do not focus on a 1 year budget by:

a. Hire a superintendant that has a background in fiscal management, leave teaching to the schools and administration to the administrators.

b. Energy and Green initiatives that will both get current support money and reduce long term operating expenses.

c. Creating excellence programs in the class room that will allow for increased class size without jeopardizing quality.

d. Early retirement initiatives that can be leverage as “off-budget” items.

e. Partnering with business to provide internship and job training as well as special programs in areas of law and medicine.

So please talk to your board members, let them know that they need to starting thinking in bold ways, that the answer “been there, done that” will no longer float. It’s their charge to find the answers, not to stand up in mock meetings professing that there is nothing they can do! If this board cannot find the answer, than my suggestion is step down, failure on this is not an option.

Jonathan Sacks

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Hats in the Ring More analysis on New York's upcoming U.S. Senate race. http://tinyurl.com/ye7ewuq

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Rescue Me Three rescue dogs arrived at Pet Rescue with knee and hip problems. Indie, Junior and Magnolia needed emergency surgery in order to be able to walk again. The cost? $6,000. A fundraiser is underway. Click here if you can help: http://www.ny-petrescue.org/index.php.

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:58:00 +0000

Toy Drive The Town of Mamaroneck Fire Department will be collecting new and unused toys through December 13th.

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:48:00 +0000

Timber! Falling trees and angry neighbors. Thus the theme of a piece in today's New York Times where towns like Larchmont are stepping into the fray. http://tinyurl.com/ykqrypo

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:20:00 +0000

AIG: The Never Ending Saga This week's New York magazine cover story goes behind the scenes of the AIG fiasco. Milly Vanilly and Timmy G are featured. http://nymag.com/news/business/62259/

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:59:00 +0000

The Big Time Which small town Mayor with big aspirations made today's Page Six? http://tinyurl.com/y9trl9s

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:58:00 +0000

Holiday Lunch Larchmont authors Lis Wiehl and Elizabeth Bradley will discuss their books at an upcoming holiday luncheon for the Larchmont Women's Club to be held on December 11th. http://tinyurl.com/ydofv62

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:56:00 +0000

War Stories Larchmont Vets recently shared their stories at an event hosted by the Larchmont Historical Society. http://tinyurl.com/yhyheaw

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:05:00 +0000

Who's the Boss? I was browsing through Larchmont's list of celebrities on wikipedia and noticed that Tony Danza was added to the list. I don't ever recall hearing anything about Tony Danza living in Larchmont. Did he?

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:37:00 +0000

Just Temping An amusing political cartoon on Timmy G in the New York Observer. Click on 11/11/09 to the right. http://www.rjmatson.com/frames_N.htm.

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:21:00 +0000

Feld for (U.S.) Senate?

Mayor Feld confirmed that she is exploring a run against U.S. Senator Gillibrand. http://tinyurl.com/ygpmgtf and http://tinyurl.com/yh7qwkl

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:35:00 +0000

Coyote Ugly Watch out for those coyotes! One scared the Rye Neck track team off the field yesterday. Last year there were sightings here in Larchmont. http://tinyurl.com/yed5j62

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:12:00 +0000

Macho Macho Man

State lawmakers and the Governor remain at a stalemate over New York's worsening fiscal crisis. While nothing has been accomplished, there's plenty of time for name calling. Senators have dubbed the Gov "King David" and "Macho Man." http://tinyurl.com/yew8r82

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:29:00 +0000

An Abundance of Food

10:30 a.m., Larchmont-Mamaroneck Food Pantry. Some of the 450 bags to be filled for Thanksgiving. 7,000 pounds of turkey will be distributed tomorrow to locals in need.

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:18:00 +0000

Cheap Thrills

As a child I had a minor obsession with the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Every time my mom brought home a roll of Pillsbury cookie dough, I'd bang it on the counter, just like in the commercial. Sadly, no little Dough Boy would pop out like he did on television. Fast forward to today at Stop & Shop where there are several Pillsbury refrigerators strategically placed in the dairy area. Here's the fun part. When you open the door and remove a box of cookie dough, the refrigerator giggles like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I admit. It gave me a little thrill. And I wasn't the only one. You should have seen the smiles and heard the chuckles, not from children, but rather from adults who enjoyed a child-like moment.

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:12:00 +0000

The Turkeys are in the House...

just past the mountain of sweet potatoes. Ahhh....Thanksgiving. In less than 72 hours, we'll all be sitting down to my favorite meal of the year. My taste buds are salivating in anticipation of turkey, gravy, herb/sausage stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, mashies...delish. I'm not sure that I have a favorite dish because I love it all. But what say you? What's on your Turkey Day table that you can't live without?

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:39:00 +0000

Ambulance Chasers I guess this shouldn't surprise me, but injury lawyers have their own web news site where they track accidents. The recent Larchmont pedestrian accident was posted here: http://tinyurl.com/y8gocgf

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:20:00 +0000

Calling All Bakers There's going to be a lot of baking going on over the next few weeks. Why not enter your prized ginger snaps in The Journal News' cookie swap contest. More info here: http://tinyurl.com/yg277sf

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:25:00 +0000

A Round of Applause to ... Larchmonter Mark Dlugash on being named a Rhodes Scholar. http://tinyurl.com/yhav539

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:31:00 +0000

An Act of Sympathy Larchmonter Teresa Kiso, a volunteer at Hospice and Palliative Care of Westchester, is in the news today. She uses her talents as an artist to provide loved ones with a watercolor painting remembrance of the deceased. http://tinyurl.com/y8s338p. Here Teresa is pictured with some of her work: http://tinyurl.com/ylfplk5.

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:56:00 +0000

Go Tigers!

Congrats to the MHS field hockey team on making it all the way to the state finals. Despite a disappointing 1 to 0 loss today, it was a great run. Well done ladies!

noreply@blogger.com (LyndaLarch10538) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Keep on Giving Despite a bad economy, people continue to donate to the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Food Pantry. A good thing since demand is increasing. http://tinyurl.com/yfkrzz9