WPCNR MR. AND MRS. AND MS. WHITE PLAINS OP ED. By Larry Giordano. March 24, 2010: The following is the text of an "open letter" to the White Plains City School Board  from White Plains' Larry Giordano who examines the recently submitted Superintendent of Schools School Budget in light of current budget trends:

Pete, (Bassano, Member, White Plains Board of Education)

It was nice seeing you again. You look very professional up there which leads me to the conclusion that you and the rest of the board members must love PAIN! I want you to know I respect all of you for the fine work and effort you have done over the past years.

 I was in total amazement listening to folks stand up there and air their personal concerns with a total disregard for the rest of the residential city tax payer. For one mother to complain about her son not having a period for BAND class or another about their son NEEDING a study period is totally nuts. Now, concerning the young lady who had issues at a younger age (I do have a heart though some in WP may not think so) my question is, since the same folks that pay taxes to the WP school district also pay taxes to county government why not use their services for social and health services and even other areas where an overlap may exist?

 After looking at the breakdown of the budget it’s very easy to see the real savings has to come from the ~80% area that includes Instruction, Special Ed and Benefits. Let’s face it; going forward NYS revenue is going to continue to be a smaller piece of the revenue pie. This will unfortunately mean all NYS resident tax payers will be responsible for a greater portion of the revenue stream for their community.

To this end for the board to believe they can continue to pass on that additional cost moving forward is both naive and irresponsible. We have a saying on Wall Street, “trees don’t grow to the sky and neither do stocks”. At some point a “pullback” occurs and the price of a company is reset to better reflect current fair value.

The same should hold true with our school budget. It’s very disturbing to see total revenue being reduced by an estimate of $5.8mm yet the WP budget was ONLY reduced by $2.3mm. That is a huge difference… $3.5mm or 60%!  I know all on the board have worked hard and long to even get to this point but unfortunately more needs to be done.

I strongly feel a more aggressive position needs to be taken with the teachers union. The time has come for all of us including the teachers to pay their fair share to both health and retirement benefits. Most folks today pay ~25% for their health care insurance. The folks of WP have been very generous to our teachers and staff members over the years. The time has come for us to reset our school budget to better reflect the current fair value otherwise the bubble we continue to feed with higher taxes will be devastating when it pops! Trust me, bubbles always POP!!