Will symposium help ‘reign in' school taxes?

To the editor: I hope that the upcoming symposium will be an honest and productive discussion on what can be done to reign in our out-of-control school tax increases. It is scary to project what our school taxes will be ten and twenty years out if nothing is done to limit their growth. In ten years they may have doubled. Many will be forced out of the area. I am a little confused about Superintendent Greenhall’s statements in the article that was run in this paper on Sept. 29. He is quoted as saying: “Ultimately, we want to receive the state aid levels that we used to.” Oh, really? You mean they would like to receive less state aid? To quote the figures listed at www.budget.state.ny.us/localities/schoolaid/schoolaid.html: “The 2006-07 Executive Budget provides a $634 million increase for General Support for Public Schools and increases New York’s investment in elementary and secondary education to a record level of $16.9 billion. With this increase, aid to the State’s 677 school districts will have grown by $7.1 billion or 72 percent since 1994-95.” Have the “unfunded mandates” really exceeded the additional funding the state has provided? If not, then are the mandates really unfunded? Also, if the state were to increase funding further wouldn’t the extra funding ultimately come from New York taxpayers? If we really want to halt the out-of-control school tax spiral, why don’t we switch all newly hired teachers to a defined contribution plan instead of a defined benefit plan? How much of our tax increases are due to the increasing burdens of benefits? Will issues like this be discussed at the symposium also? Robert Kubarych Warwick