SeeThroughNY is celebrating its 2nd Anniversary!

Taxpayer activists- here is something for you to do.

See if your school district is being honest about their contingent budget this year. If not, complain the the NYS Attorney General and NYS Comptroller's office. The districts are using this wrong comparison to make voters believe that the difference between the contingent budget and presented budgets are nil, so voting it down will have little tax saving consequences. However, they threaten the usual service cuts. What is unusual this year is that inflation is nil and they are not all districts are accurately (honestly) reflecting this reality that does not suit them.

My district is wrongly declaring the contingent budget to be 4%. This is wrong. I suspect many other districts are creatively interpreting the law to suite thier thirst for your money...not letting the law get in the way.

I believe the contingent budget should be zero, based on Dept. of Labor Urban CPI statistics and NYS law governing contingent budgets.



The Contingent budget is "...the lesser of 120% the rate of inflation or 4%..." according to the NYS Budget Handbook.

http://www.sachemunspun.com/schoolbudgethandbook.pdf




The inflation is based on the "...the twelve month period preceding January first of the current year..."
. i.e, 2008.

http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=CU_cpibrief


Bureau of Labor Statistics Urban CPI for 2008 is ZERO if you add up each monthly stats. There were actually four months of negative inflation in 2008! 120% of Zero is Zero. Zero is less than 4%, except in our school districts.


Turn on the spotlights and expose your local district's practices.

Well it all depends on the numbers doesn't it ? I believe yours. It just doesn't make sense that a District proposed and teacher union supported budget would have a much lowewr price tag than a budget that taxpayers reject. Andreavecchio
How exactly should we taxpayers contact Comptroller Di Napoli with this? Can we let others know that this is what they should be doing too?

Everything they touch becomes tainted. Why? Because usually no one is looking. Where else
can such large sums of money be used with hardly any oversight. Our budgcet this year is very
close to $100 million; the school population is down, the teachers union has not been asked
to share the pain by the new superintendent and they continue to spend money foolishly
despite the economy. The school boards are shamefully put there by the teacher's union; and
many of the people who vote don't really understand the ramifications of what they are doing.

May have misstated where tax limit is in State constitution please disregard til I can confirm, Sorry