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Shared Services Can Be a Confidence Building Measure for School Districts
Dear Editor:
My recent letters to this newspaper suggesting the consolidation of Haldane school district with its neighbors caught the attention of Assemblywoman Sandy Galef or at least her staff. With her invitation in hand, I recently attended the symposium on "Shared Services" that she organized at the Cortlandt Town Hall. On the panel was Ms. Galef and other political notables and the audience seemed to have a nice mix of local officialdom. In one of those little ironies of life, immediately to my left was Robert Bondi, our County Executive, who, to his credit, did not slug me for criticizing his proposed 40% tax hike in my letter to this newspaper last fall. No doubt he has no idea who I am.
Shared Services is a buzz phrase for local governments teaming up to split the cost of tasks such as garbage collection, payroll, or school bus driving. There seems to be merit in the concept, especially if a resource is lying idle or economies of scale can be realized.
Although Ms. Galef's gathering had the usual release of political hot air, I give credit to our Assemblywoman for bringing the spotlight on to shared service as a remedy for the skyrocketing cost of local government, especially school districts. Already assisting in this effort is BOCES, whose mission is to provide services across multiple school districts, and whose representative on the panel suggested they can do much more than they are currently being asked to do right now.
Haldane is already using BOCES in several areas and one could argue that the Garrison school district has long mastered the art of sharing services in its offshoring of children to high schools in other school districts, including Haldane. As a result, the taxes of our wealthy neighbors are lower than ours, which makes you wonder if we are charging them enough money to educate their children.
One panelist suggested that school districts share one very important service that might result in the biggest savings of all. If school districts teamed up to negotiate with the teacher's union, then professional negotiators might be hired to even the playing field with this powerhouse. Future settlements might limit salary increases and have a larger share of benefits paid by teachers, much like other occupations. We all know teachers are wonderful, dedicated professionals and that includes my motherin law who taught in City of Poughkeepsie schools for over 30 years before her retirement, and I have nothing against workers' right to organize to get what they think they deserve. However, I would also like to see school districts organize so that taxpayers can get what they think they deserve as well.
For me, the take away point made by a panelist was the importance of sharing services as a confidence-building measure for school districts. Gaining trust might be a first step towards the ultimate goal of consolidation. Call it a long engagement before marriage.
Joseph Barbaro
Cold Spring
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