• * The initially large proposal charade is apparently a thing of the past. Now its: "Give 'em the BIG one, with no reduction!!!" Just another measure of TVCSD contempt for our intelligence.
• * Zero line budgeting has been replaced with an "Emperor submits, the Board submits" process.
• * Unable to correctly project student enrollment: they guess, at our figurative and literal expense.

• * Revenues increase by 22%, nearly $7,000,000, and Sonedecker deems it "not enough to defray the more recent and projected increases in enrollment." Well, we added 50 students to Sonedecker's guesstimate and, multiplying 500 by $12,500 - the district's operational cost per student - the total came to less than the revenue increase. So a request for an additional $4,000,000 reeks of empire building.
• * State Aid is from taxes you provided Albany.
• * BOCES rent payments to TVCSD, for a closed school building, is from taxes you provided Albany.
• * Indeed, all of the district's revenues come from YOUR pockets. That is, not just the $60 plus million in School Taxes Sonedecker is asking for but, virtually the entire $99,000,000 as even the interest accrued on unexpended resources is interest on your money and therefore YOURS.
• * Then:

1. Teachers with less than 17 years of service to the community have for some time now been receiving increases of NOT LESS than 8 percent per year, combined salary and longevity increments! What about you?
2. Teachers with 25-30 years in the District - under their last contract - were given a 346% increase! What about you?
3. Kindergarten teachers can earn more than $90,000 a year plus fringe benefits per year and expect to get parental assistance in the classroom. What about you?
4. Tenure is: "guaranteed lifetime employment." What about you?

• * Unnecessary but convenient Advanced Placement courses save parents the first half to a full year of a student's COLLEGE tuition with YOUR money! While, Advance Placement creates still more positions for tenured teachers in a junior college like environment, at YOUR expense.
• * As the number of teachers, their salaries, and the number of questionable local technology requirements increase, the costs will become unbearable. The $12,500 per child expenditure will rise. "Empty nesters" will leave. Their homes, then reoccupied by young couples of child bearing age, will produce still further cost per child per household increases as more and more of the 25,000 now picking up the tab "for the children" leave. Those remaining will see home resale values plummet: "Taxes, too high, sir!"
• * Having been part of a very large community in New York City, some many years ago, I watched tens of thousands sell their homes over just one summer and flee because of another school issue…busing. These costs will have the same result. People will, when it suits them, by-pass the polling booth and vote with their feet.

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