Try doing this exercise and you will see that your Long Island school taxes are for the children...but just not your children!

1) Enter you total property taxes here>>>>>>___________

2) About two-thirds are school taxes.
Multiply #1 by .667 Enter number here>>____________

3) About 80% of school district spending
is for salaries and benefits.
Multiply #2 by 0.80. Enter number here>>____________


Now look at the answer to #3. This is a close approximation of what you are personally paying your local teachers and administrators. Are you getting your money's worth or are you getting hosed?

You Decide.

We relocated to Tennessee in 2005 because we were tired of the excessive property tax we were paying in the Northeast and although we wanted four distinct seasons, we wanted shorter winters. We had sold our 1100 sq ft home in Williston Park, L.I. in May 2005 for $460K. At the time the total property tax was about $7K. The new owner expanded the house to 2400 sq ft and his 2009 taxes are about $14K; however without any changes our 2009 taxes would have been $9K. Living in 1100 sq ft had always been a challenge. One bath, small closets, no dining room; built in 1947 it was the typical GI Cape. We couldn’t afford to expand it and we couldn’t have afforded the taxes that would have meant. With the $460K in the bank, we went house hunting in the Nashville area, quickly settling on Hendersonville as the best value and lifestyle for the dollar. After seeing dozens of homes, in August 2005 we closed a deal for $240K on a 3000 sq ft house, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2 car attached garage on 1/3 acre with a golf course view. Our property taxes of $2K get us an excellent school system, with new modern facilities, a 92 member local Police Department, a 103 member paid full time Fire Department, numerous well maintained city parks and easy access to Old Hickory Lake and its 97 mile length. Results: Better home, $200K in the bank, $7K savings in property tax. Friendly people, easy living, less winter—Priceless. See RetireTN.info for more.

Lets look at it another way:
A teacher works about 9 months a year, that is ~270 days, take away 72 days for weekends, now we are at ~198 days of actually working days
Lets say a teacher works 8 hrs a day, (which is high in my opinion)
With an average NYS teachers salary at 54K, that is ~$34 an hour (not including benefits)
Are you kidding me?? Hell yeah we are paying these teachers too much money!!

Quit your pissing and moaning- why don't you take a look at the cost of overtime for NYS corrections officers (real productive use of our state money) or State House workers, or Troopers- none of which require the level of education to even "apply for the job" as do even the lowest ranking teachers on any pay grade.

Oh wait, that info is not available here... I wonder why-- feel "outraged" about that?