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Carl Strock THE VIEW FROM HERE
Carl Strock can be reached at 395-3085 by e-mail at carlstrock@dailygazette.com.

Surprise!
Taxes rise
with STAR

    Don’t blame me, ladies and gentlemen. I told you way back in 1997, when the Hon. George Elmer Pataki was touting his new STAR program — standing for School Tax Assessment Relief — that it was a shuck.
    I explained that the state was going to give local school districts money to offset a reduction in property assessments with the idea that local school boards would exercise restraint, and I asked rhetorically, Is there anyone in his right mind who believes that school boards will do anything but take the money and run?”
    I remember suggesting to a fl ack in the governor’s press offi ce at the time that school boards would feel free to spend more since they would have more, and I remember the flack saying, “Oh, I can’t imagine they would do that.”
    Well, now we have the news from the Public Policy Institute, an arm of the state Business Council, that — guess what — since the adoption of STAR, property taxes have been going up faster than ever.
    “Property taxes increased 3 percent a year from 1995 to 2000, then
    percent a year from 2000 to 2005, more than double the rate of infl ation,” the institute found.
    More specifically, school tax levies “rose four times as fast been 2002 and 2007 as they did in the previous five years.
    So I believe my nickel is safe. The governor and the Legislature trumpeted when the STAR program started that school taxes would go down 27 percent, based on the fanciful assumption that school boards would absorb the new subsidy responsibly, and I offered at the time to pay a nickel to anyone who could find a school district anywhere in the state where that actually happened.
    I even remember Gov. Pataki visiting the Annie Schaffer Senior Center in Schenectady early in 1998, when STAR had just kicked in, and shamelessly telling the innocents there, “Your school taxes will go down $890.” Yes, $890!
    He had to know better. He himself had proposed limiting how much school boards could raise taxes after they got the new subsidy, and the Legislature, in response to lobbying by the School Boards Association and the teachers’ unions, rejected it.
    So here we are now in the great state of New York, paying $2,303 in property taxes a year for each man, woman and child, which is the highest in the nation and double the national average, and those taxes are going up faster than ever “under cover of STAR,” as the Public Policy Institute aptly put it.
    The remedy? The institute modestly proposes, among other things, the elimination of the Wicks Law, which requires separate contracts on big construction projects, to the benefit of the construction industry; reform of the Triborough Amendment, which keeps publicemployee labor contracts in effect for eternity; an “update” of public employees’ immensely expensive pension plans, and so on. In all of which I wish the Public Policy Institute, and the rest of us, the best of luck.
SCHALMONT CONTRACT
    Perhaps you noticed the photo in this newspaper the other day of a teachers’ union president wearing button saying “NO CONTRACT” as she addressed the Schalmont Board of Education.
    And perhaps you read the accompanying article that said, “The 200-member union has worked without
    contract since June 2006, when their three-year agreement with the district expired.”
    If so, I will repeat what I have already explained approximately 247,519 times in the past: Teachers never work without a contract, nor do other unionized public employees, thanks to the above-mentioned by the state Legislature in 1982 as a refinement of the Taylor Law.
    When their contract reaches the end of its term, it nevertheless remains in full force and effect until a new one is agreed to.
    This is different from a contract between you and me. If we draw up a contract and specify an expiration date, when that date comes, the contract is finished and we have to start over again.
    What’s more, teachers have a salary schedule that specifies annual “step increases” — or raises, in plain English — and that salary schedule is part of the contract and thus also remains in effect, meaning that teachers continue to get their raises every year even as they wear buttons or carry picket signs proclaiming “NO CONTRACT.”
    In the case of Schalmont those raises average 3.25 percent a year and culminate in a top salary of $86,234 for a teacher with 25 years’ experience.
    So when you hear them complain about lack of a contract or lack of raises, keep that in mind. What they’re demanding is an increase above the automatic 3.25 percent that they’re already getting.
    I will not spell out again the number of days a year they work, nor how much extra they get paid for supervising extracurricular activities, nor the age at which they can retire at half pay, since I begin to sound like a broken record even to myself.
    But I will note that one of the health-insurance plans that teachers have access to in Schalmont, and which the administration is trying to change, costs $28,000 a year for family coverage. Can you imagine that?
    As for the effect of all this on property taxes, I refer you back to the first half of this column

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I just have one question , how much money is enough?

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I'd say that $86,234 is a very high salary for a teacher with 25 years service plus benefits

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I explained that the state was going to give local school districts money to offset a reduction in property assessments with the idea that local school boards would exercise restraint, and I asked rhetorically, Is there anyone in his right mind who believes that school boards will do anything but take the money and run?”
    I remember suggesting to a fl ack in the governor’s press offi ce at the time that school boards would feel free to spend more since they would have more, and I remember the flack saying, “Oh, I can’t imagine they would do that.”
    Well, now we have the news from the Public Policy Institute, an arm of the state Business Council, that — guess what — since the adoption of STAR, property taxes have been going up faster than ever.

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Teachers should contribute more to their health care

    Re Feb. 12 article, “Teachers confront school board — More than 100 show unity over stalled negotiations”: I continue to find it interesting that the Schalmont Teachers Association and their union feel entitled to health insurance benefits at minimal cost to them while most private-sector employees continue to see their out-of-pocket costs increase. In addition to not being able to afford their own, they are expected to pay more (via school taxes) so that teachers continue to enjoy these benefi ts at reduced expense.
    A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a recognized leader in health care policy, showed the average premium for family coverage in 2007 is $12,106 and workers on average now pay $3,281 out-of-their paychecks to cover their share of the cost of a family policy. The average worker is paying 27 percent of their employer-provided premium; the Schalmont administration is only asking for 15 percent — and that doesn’t occur for two more years. This is not an unreasonable request by any means.
    Several months ago, I came home to a message on my answering machine from a parent asking for support in the teachers’ battle with the school board. The message proceeded to say that the union is requesting the teachers “do less” with the children. The “do less” example referred to less projects and display of these projects in the hallways. I found this very interesting, particularly when I witness the sea of shirts asking us to invest in education, yet they are doing less.
    Dedicated, responsible teachers, who continually prove their value, should be paid a fair, comparable wage as well as comparable benefits. I have been very pleased with the teachers and instruction my children have received thus far.
    However, it needs to be made very clear to the politicians, union leaders and state administrators that the taxpayers of New York are fed up. They are fed up with continually being asked to pay more for their own benefits in addition to those of public employees. I do not feel that it is unreasonable to make all public employees contribute a comparable percentage of their salary toward their benefits as any other employer requests, and I applaud Board President Michael Della Villa and the current administration for standing their ground against this rhetoric, all in the name of “your children’s education.”
    MICHAEL PASQUARELLA
    Rotterdam