Taxpayer: 'School Tax Levy Is Too High'

It’s time to start living in the real world for the Farmingdale School Board and Administration. Did any school board member ask you if you’d be willing to pay more school taxes?

They seem to think you’d be more than willing as long as it was three percent or less. How about a zero percent increase, was that considered? Did any school board member consider our ability to keep paying these inflated school taxes year after year? Did any school board member consider the financial health of this Community? How many student family members have lost their jobs, or have had their salary reduced since last year’s budget? How many Farmingdale homes are in foreclosure in this school district?

Unlike the school board, I looked at the economic health of this community. As of this writing, there are 217 dwellings listed for sale in Farmingdale, and 31 homes are in foreclosure proceedings. The unemployment rate hovers around eight percent, and a negative job growth has remained constant. Take a walk along Main Street and look at the empty store fronts. The cost of living in Farmingdale is 45 percent higher than the national average.

The population change since the last census of 2000 is down 5.87 percent. This bleak financial reality is compounded by the fact that Farmingdale Schools spend $12,110 per student, while the national average is only $5,678 per student. Simply stated we spend too much to educate our children. Our taxes are too high and our ability to pay has hit the breaking point.

There are things the school board and school administration must, and can do, to reduce costs to Farmingdale School tax payers besides threatening parents and students with cutting academic and athletic programs and raising school taxes.

First, the Farmingdale Board of Education and administration must insist that zero percent pay increases are in line with other public sector jobs these days. Teachers must realize that the economy of unchecked contractual pay increases and guaranteed step pay boosts must stop in our current economic climate. Part of the educational process is studying what happens in the world outside the classroom, and the rest of the world is taking pay cuts, losing jobs, and paying more for benefits and pensions. That is lesson one for the Farmingdale School Board, administration and teaching staff to come to terms with.

Families are moving out of this area due in part to how much it costs to live here. The student populations in all the Farmingdale Schools are decreasing. Simply stated, the Farmingdale School tax levy payers have hit the breaking point and must move out. Our school taxes are two and three times higher than Town taxes, and this trend cannot sustain itself without some serious re-tooling of the largest line cost item in the school budget – salary and benefits.

When times get tough, some tough decisions have to be made. Not popular decisions but intelligent fiscally sound decisons. I've made mine. I’m voting NO for the current 2011-2012 Farmingdale School Budget. The school tax levy is still too high, and more needs to be done to reduce it, or keep it at zero tax increases in this current economy.

As part of its Patch will feature local opinions on the subject. Interested in having your voice heard? Contact Farmingdale Patch editor Amanda Fiscina at amandaf@patch.com.