Vocal Taxpayers Vent at Town Hall Meeting

On Saturday, January 30, at a town meeting in Putnam Valley, Assemblywoman Sandy Galef heard first-hand how angry some taxpayers are about what they see as an endlessly escalating tax burden. A small but vocal—and sometimes hopping mad—group of about 15 citizens and several other politicians joined Galef in the community room of the Putnam Valley Library for a two-hour discussion that focused primarily on school funding.

"The only people in this country whose jobs are safe have a county job, a state job, a federal job, or they're a teacher," said attendee Christine Conkling, who added that "having teachers on the school board is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank."

"We can't afford the taxes that we have already," said another audience member. "I feel like the school board that we have works for the teachers, not the taxpayers."

Along with County Legislators Vinny Tamagna and Sam Oliverio, Jr., who together represent the entire western part of Putnam County, and PV Town Board member Bob Cinque, Galef began her presentation with an overview of the current budget situation at the state level. The budget shortfall that faced Governor Paterson and legislators at the outset of the process was pared down through program and department cutting, consolidation of state agencies, an added $5 billion in revenues, and $5 billion in stimulus funds, but the governor charged legislators with finding another $5 billon.

In response, Galef said, they cut another $2.7 billion, but a deficit remained, which led, in part, to Paterson's holding back of state school aid funding late in 2009.

"We're so conflicted," Galef admitted. "We don't want the big bonuses on Wall Street, but we do want the big bonuses on Wall Street," because they add funds to the state's coffers.

Galef reported that the state is "back into a soda tax, back into an additional tobacco tax," but not raising income taxes this fiscal year "because we did that last year."

But the topic that many audience members clearly wanted to hear about was schools. When Galef said that the current figures call for PV to lose about $578,000 in state aid, she agreed that either taxpayers would have to make that amount up, or the district would have to find ways to cut spending.

Putnam Valley has a long history of strong anti-tax sentiment that blossomed in the 1980s when the initial vote to build a PV High School in town rather than continuing to send students to the Lakeland School District was overturned. Although the small but state-of-the art high school was eventually approved by voters and built on the same campus as the existing PV Middle School, opening ten years ago, there are still plenty of voters who say they were deceived in one way or another by the Board of Education. These voters have distrust what they view as an alliance between board members, the PTAs, and the PV Federation of Teachers to accept teacher demands and push budgets through, with little attempt at serious negotiation.

Conkling said the composition of the school board, by not reflecting the diversity of the community, has led to the escalating budgets. "That's because there's a board that's teachers and bankers," she said. The current board's president is a corporate accountant, the vice president is a pharmaceutical statistician whose wife was a longtime teacher, two members are retired teachers, and the last is a local businesswoman, PV parent, and longtime PTA volunteer.

Conkling added that she had worked in the corporate world for many years, and that when a company announced an overall corporate freeze, "you froze. We had an 18-month freeze on everybody's salaries, no matter what … Now I hear that they are considering giving out free computers to fifth grade and under. I can't even maintain my home computer. Guess what: stop spending!"

Although Galef and others attempted to respond, she kept on speaking: "technology is out of control;" "good luck getting a job;" " nobody is suffering here;" and "these kids are spoiled to death."

Legislator Oliverio, a PVCSD building administrator who is currently the assistant principal at the Putnam Valley High School, seemed to have had enough when he raised his voice to meet Conkling's escalating volume: "Vote 'em out! Don't vote for them! Go to the board meetings!" "Come on Sam," someone else shouted, "you're part of the problem!" Oliverio went on to say, in effect, that he was sick of people complaining about schools and government but not willing to become part of the process. Maryann Arrien, who videotapes and broadcasts municipal meetings for Putnam Valley, reminded the group that if your work or family demands make it impossible for you to make it to meetings, they are broadcast repeatedly on local cable channels 18 and 20, and video downloads are also available on Putnam Valley's town website.

"I don't know it all," Galef stated, striking a conciliatory tone. "If you have a problem with a school board or the state legislature or whatever, you to have to go … to meetings. You have to really communicate … Tell them in a nice way, lay out the things you want them to consider."

Galef said that she had suggested getting regional negotiations going through BOCES in order to give school board more negotiating clout when they meet with teachers' unions. She added that although she was a former teacher herself, she strongly believes in rethinking the negotiating process and has looked at ways to revise aspects such as tenure protection. She reminded the group that she had submitted a bill requiring local governments and school boards to post the results of contract negotiations publicly for 30 days after an agreement is reached to the public can review the results, "but I have absolutely no support for it."

Vinny Tamagna clearly agreed with Galef's position on consolidation. "Here on the western side of the county we have Haldane, Garrison, and Putnam Valley schools. Where is the duplication? Where can we do the same service but with less people?" Galef added that at a similar event earlier in the month in Philipstown she had raised the issue of the Haldane and Garrison districts—which serve small, neighboring communities— and what could be done in terms of consolidation to save tax dollars. "Haldane people were saying 'that's a good idea,' and the Garrison people were saying, 'No, we came here because we liked the school.' The state is not going to come down here and make decisions. It's got to happen through the people," she said.

An audience member mentioned the three municipalities of Philipstown, Nelsonville, and Cold Spring, whose town or village halls lie geographically within a few blocks of one another, yet represent three distinct sets of governments. Tamagna pointed out that he is already looking at court consolidation with Philipstown Supervisor Richard Shea and Cold Spring Mayor Seth Gallagher.

Nancy Miringoff, the Associate Executive Director of Putnam Associated Resource Centers (PARC), reminded the group that state Medicaid cuts have a direct impact on her organization's ability to serve developmentally disabled citizens in group homes, and that "there's always the threat that our people could be institutionalized, and we can't go back there."

As the meeting closed there was a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing our region, but there was also a sense of frustration at the magnitude of the problems yet to be solved. Galef will be holding a meeting on court consolidation at the Cortlandt Town Hall on Thursday.