Voters approved 'tightly controlled spending' in this year's school budgets

lohud.com:  School districts are crediting their strong communication efforts, detailed budget breakdowns and, above all else, tightly controlled spending for Tuesday's many one-sided votes for school budgets....
Overall, voters approved 48 out of 53 budget proposals in Westchester , Rockland and Putnam counties — the same number as last year. Budgets were defeated in Mahopac, North Rockland, Greenburgh Central 7 and, by overwhelming numbers, in Mount Vernon and East Ramapo.
Many spending plans for 2012-13 were approved by better than 2-to-1, signaling strong voter satisfaction with most districts' efforts to minimize tax increases during tough economic times.
Local districts proposed an average spending increase of 1.97 percent for next year and an average tax-levy increase of 2.6 percent....
Many districts have tried to make clear at what points spending cuts will require larger class sizes and compromise the quality of education that people have come to expect....
Jeff Diamond, who was elected Tuesday to the Blind Brook school board after offering detailed criticisms of school spending, said voters have little incentive to vote against budgets with small spending increases because school boards can adopt contingency budgets that are not much different.
"Voters need to recognize that the greatest impact they can have on budgets is to elect school board members who will do a good job," he said. 

I generally agree, although I'd like to see stronger communication efforts and more detailed budget breakdowns, as well as more advocacy for fundamental changes.

School budgets overwhelming approved in Westchester County

I think voters sent a message that they support the public schools and were pleased with this year's attempts to rein in costs.  Mount Vernon is one sad exception, a district with serious problems that transcend one budget being voted down.

Source:  The Journal News

New Rochelle school district budget analysis shows skyrocketing costs and deficit projection

Adam D. Egelberg, CFA, a resident of the New Rochelle School District, has taken a close look at district finances and is writing a series of blog posts with important information that voters should review before going to the polls next week.  He has done an amazing job uncovering details and trends, something that I'd like to see done in my own school district.

(As a side note, it's noteworthy that  the school charged Egelberg $489.79 for budgets going back to 2000-01 that he requested through the FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) process.  He was charged for photocopying even though nine of the ten budgets he received were "left-over bounded copies from prior years" that had already been paid for by his property taxes.)

Spending in New Rochelle has skyrocketed in comparison to inflation and enrollment.  (Adding a student achievement measure to this chart would show if more money has resulted in better-educated students.)

In a nutshell, expenses are out of control. Over the past 10 years our health care and general welfare benefit costs have gone up by 138%. It is a shocking increase when compared with an 8% rise in student enrollment.

This chart confirms for me that the real choice area school districts have is either to cut student programs or cut compensation costs.  The reason I believe this is that since Westchester property taxes are already the highest in the country, I doubt taxes can be raised much more.

School districts should share historical and projected budget data with residents, preparing charts similar to those created by Mr. Egelberg.  How hard can it be?

More to come from Talk of the Sound.

Local school budget estimated to increase taxes by 7%

Our local school is one of only two among 11 area districts that are not giving voters an estimate of the tax rate increase associated with the proposed budget.

As voters head to the polls in less than two weeks to decide whether to approve their school districts’ 2011-2012 budget proposals, some voters will have more information than others. For voters in Tuckahoe and Eastchester, they’ll be making a decision without an estimate from the districts on how much their taxes will go up if they vote “yes.”

According to the school, it does not give an estimate because "that information is out of its control".  Declining property values and the related tax certiori filings mean estimating can be especially tricky these days.  The school doesn't even request the information needed to make an estimate.

Assistant Superintendent of Business Mary Ellen Melnyk said in an email that the district had not requested any information on the assessment level from the town assessor during the recent budget process.

But the town assessor gives helpful information.

According to Town Assessor Todd Huttunen, both the Eastchester and Tuckahoe school districts are looking at an estimated drop in assessment of around 2.3 percent. Though the actual formula used to calculate the final tax rate is more complicated, Huttunen said that a solid estimate of where the tax rate currently sits can be obtained by adding the percentage of tax levy increase to the percentage of the drop in assessment.
In Tuckahoe, that would put a tax rate estimate at around 4.77 percent, within the range estimated by Watkins. Eastchester’s tax rate estimate, based on those numbers, would come in at about 7 percent.

Some residents would like the schools to give voters more information.

To some in the community, though, not making any projection of the tax rate is even more misleading.
“You’re going to be voting on practically 5 percent [of a tax rate increase],” said Tuckahoe School District resident Joe Pregiato. “If people knew they’d be voting to jack up their taxes 5 percent again, a lot of people might vote no.”
Loretta Dalton, a resident of the Eastchester School District, noted that the 3.22 percent tax levy increase advertised by the Eastchester School District last year ended up translating into a roughly 7 percent tax rate increase for herself and several of her neighbors.
She said she felt the tax rate projection, even preliminary, is key to understanding the actual budget impact.
“I believe in transparency all across the board,” she said. “There is no reason for them not to be releasing it … We should be understanding what we’re voting for.”

Local school districts won’t publicly release tax rate estimates

Our local school district's proposed budget increase is highest in region

Lohud.com calculated the average of proposed budget increases for the lower Hudson Vally school districts to be 2%.  Our local district is asking voters to approve a 3.9% increase, the second highest increase among all schools.  And when corrected for the fact that Edgemont's capital projects expenses will be paid with funds collected in previous tax years, we rank number one.*

Some facts about our local school district's proposed budget:

• It is the highest budget-to-budget increase among 53 school districts in the Lower Hudson Valley.
• The number of enrolled students is not projected to increase.
• It eliminates at least 6 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) instructional positions, reduces the music program and increases class sizes.
• $950,000 was pulled from the district's unallocated fund balance in order to offset what would otherwise have been an even bigger tax levy increase.
• Pension/health/salary costs went up, while all other school costs combined went down.
• Taxpayer-funded pension costs increased approximately 37% from last year and account for over 50% of the budget increase. ( It is projected that taxpayer-funded annual contributions to teacher pensions will more than quadruple over the next five years.)
• For their family health insurance coverage, school employees pay only a fraction of premiums paid by state employees (26%) and private sector employees (18%).  Health benefit costs account for 18% of this year's budget increase.

The bottom line is that student programs have been downsized while school employees have experienced negligible changes to their generous compensation packages.  Good teachers should be well compensated, but the trend of escalating cost of benefits means that for the foreseeable future either the quality of our children's education will diminish or substantial tax increases will be accepted by voters.  And given that Westchester leads nation in property taxes again, I predict that our children will be the losers in this equation.  It appears that the real choice we face is either cutting compensation costs or cutting student services.

I'd like to know if our school board asked the union to renegotiate their contract before the budget was finalized.

Related:  Passing the pension time bomb in New York State

* Taxpayers in the Edgemont district face the highest spending increase in the region, 4.5 percent, according to state data. Superintendent Nancy Taddiken said, however, that the $50.7 million proposed budget includes $850,000 for capital projects that was collected from prior years' budgets.
"Our budget-to-budget increase is 2.73 percent," Taddiken said. "The larger number is a result of an accounting requirement."

"The reality is you can't do more with less, only less with less,"

"The reality is you can't do more with less, only less with less,"

These are the words of Jeanne-Claire Cotnoir, president of the Briarcliff Teachers Association.  Their community is divided over plans to trim school spending, with passionate sentiments on both sides of the issue.  Former school board member Joan Austin voices an opposing view.

"A leaner school system might just be a better one."

Per pupil spending is $29,964, but proposed budget cuts will trim that slightly.  Plans include teacher layoffs as well as downsized music programs and AP classes.

The teachers union says taxpayers need to increase education spending, but some taxpayers believe that more money does not necessarily lead to better schools.

You can read the entire article after the jump.

Average school budget increase in New York expected to be at or below 1.4%

The Journal News offers a snapshot of what New York State public schools are planning for their 2011-12 budgets.

• districts plan layoffs, salary freezes, program cuts or increases in tax levies — or some combination
• districts are working very hard to hold down the tax increases
• About 300 of New York's school districts have reported so far that they plan to eliminate a total of nearly 16,000 jobs
• In some school systems, unions have agreed to freeze salaries and make concessions "to help preserve programs and reduce the number of pink slips,"
• the average spending hike for the 2011-12 budgets will be at or below this year's 1.4 percent
• Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been urging schools to use their reserve accounts
• the people of this state are saying, 'I need a cap on my property tax because you're taxing me out of my home.'"
• school districts are saying they understand the fiscal realities

For the first time ever, my family is discussing in real terms our options for moving from New York in order to escape the high taxes.  My husband grew up here and we moved back to this town 24 years ago, but we believe taxes have been growing at an unsustainable rate.

You can read the entire article after the jump.

"News flash: It's raining. Double news flash: It's pouring."

I agree with New York Governor Cuomo when he describes the public school funding crisis this way.

"News flash: It's raining. Double news flash: It's pouring."

The Wall Street Journal writes about what school districts are doing to address crisis conditions:

• tapping deeper into reserves to avoid layoffs and cuts to programs and sport
• 200 of the more than 700 public school districts in the state have agreed to concessions in recent years

Some examples of "innovating" and "cooperating":

— Rockland County's Ramapo school district, where teachers agreed to increase their contribution into their health benefits, along with a two-year pay freeze, saving $2.4 million over that time.
— Albany County's Bethlehem schools, where every employee accepted a pay freeze for at least most of the coming year, saving $1.3 million.
— Oneida County's Adirondack Central Schools board, which adjusted schedules so fewer buses were on the road at the same time and bought three buses instead of four, while reducing the number of positions that were to be cut.
— Jefferson County's Sackets Harbor schools, where every employee will go a second year without a raise.

Nobody seems to be increasing spending to a point where taxes will rise more than a few percentage points. 

Update:  Average school budget increase in New York expected to be at or below 1.4%

Informative Q & A about school budget issues - tenure is mandated by New York State

These FAQ are posted at the Mamaroneck school district website.  It appears they are from last year's budget period, but many are relevant today.  Here are some selected questions explaining tenure.  I previously posted about compensation and benefits Q&A.

Q:  Why do we have tenure in our school district?

 

A:  Tenure is governed by New York State Education Law (Sections 2509, 2573, 3012 and 3014) and is not optional for NYS public schools.  Teachers are eligible for tenure in their third year of employment, unless they have been granted tenure in a previous district, in which case the probationary period is two, instead of three, years.  A tenured teacher has a legal right to his or her job unless a school district can prove just cause for dismissal or discipline in a due process hearing. 

 

Q:  If we have to lay off teachers, how do seniority rules apply?

   

A:  Seniority rights are based upon appointment in a particular tenure area and apply to both tenured and probationary teachers.  Should a teaching position be abolished, districts must use seniority to determine the order in which teachers are dismissed.  Thus, within the tenure area in which the position was abolished, the teacher with the least seniority would be laid off, even if there are other teachers with less seniority in other tenure areas.

Tenure areas are defined by the NYS Education Department and include Elementary (Pre-K through sixth grade), academic subject areas for grades 7-12 (English, social studies, mathematics, science and foreign language), as well as 15 other special subject areas.  In the case of elementary school teachers, teachers from all four elementary schools are in the same tenure area; thus, seniority is looked at district-wide, and not by school or particular grade level.

 

Q:  Can we stop awarding tenure?  What happens if we do?

 

A:  Tenure is mandated by NYS law and is not optional.  We are not permitted to hire teachers on a year-to-year contract past the state-defined probationary period. If we continued employing a teacher past the probationary period, the teacher could be considered by law to have been granted tenure "by estoppel" anyway, even without board approval.  It is also not legal for a board simply to dismiss all teachers after their three-year probation is over.

PTA's new focus is "advocating for funds"

Not your mom's PTA: Fun fundraisers yield to advocating for funds

That's the headline of a lohud.com article spelling out out why the PTA's new focus is on defending against education spending cuts during these tough economic times.  Although this new priority is understandable, I wish PTAs would spend more energy helping schools learn how to do more with less, since increasing productivity may be the best way to advocate for our children as government funding continues to feel the pressure of a faltering economy and crippling deficits.

Several straight years of budget crises that threaten to change the nature of public education have inspired the venerable PTA to modernize its approach to defending schools and students. Local and regional PTAs across the state are now trolling through legislation and contracts, fighting state-aid cuts, and meeting with lawmakers in an effort to get a seat at the lobbying table....
The cuts are devastating and coming at the wrong time, said Lex Kessler, a member of the Somers PTA Council. He said American kids are falling behind their peers in other countries, especially in math and science.

PTA members should be reminded that higher education spending has not correlated with higher student achievement levels.

Somewhat surprisingly, an ex-PTA president serving as a state legislator is advocating for the tax cap.

Even Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, a Democrat from the Sound shore who started out as a PTA president decades ago, changed her position and said she is backing a cap this year so she "can be at the table" and push for mandate relief.
Any discussion of a tax cap must address ballooning debt payments and pension and health-care costs, she said.
"I'm trying to offer some simple, but necessary changes to it," she said.

I agree with the sentiments expressed by this comment:

I do applaud all the PTA volunteers for their time & effort. However, their mission should not be a lobbying effort for the teachers & union.
The PTA should be asking the teachers how to do more with less.

Read the entire article after the jump.

Pearl River school district renegotiates contracts

Pearl River school district:

The teachers and administrators unions have agreed to contract givebacks for the 2011-12 school year to stave off extensive cuts to programs and staffing positions.
The renegotiated contracts were approved Monday and will reduce salary increases for 217 teachers and 11 administrators. School officials said Tuesday that would realize between $900,000 and $1.5 million in savings for the district over the next four years.
The revised agreement cuts teacher salary increases from 2.6 percent to 0.6 percent for the 2011-12 school year. Administrators will see their 2.75 percent salary increase for 2011-12 reduced to zero.

These givebacks may save about 17 teacher positions and elementary music programs, middle school art and technology instruction, along with some high school courses.

But financial problems are likely to continue.

Superintendent Frank Auriemma praised the teachers and administrator s for the voluntary givebacks, although he warned that future reductions in the 2012-13 school year were likely.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20110323/NEWS03/103230356/1024/NEWS08/Pearl-River-teachers-administrators-agree-1-5-million-givebacks

The entire article is below.

"I think the employees have to become part of the solution."

The Port Chester school district:

"I don't really believe that a tax levy of over 6 percent will pass," board member James Dreves said of the proposed increase. "We run a really lean ship in Port Chester. I think the employees have to become part of the solution."...

Like other districts, Port Chester is coping with declining property values and increased pension costs.

Sounds familiar.

And this is just kicking the can down the road, shifting the burden onto future students.

On the spending side, the district expects to save $1.1 million next year as a result of a retirement incentive taken by 26 teachers and three administrative employees.

Pension reform is desperately needed.

Port Chester district aims for lower tax increase - lohud, 3/20/11

The entire article:

"once in a lifetime" teacher likely to be layed off because of LIFO*

My daughter's English teacher is one of the best either of my children has ever had.  His instruction and intense feedback is superb.  A school administrator describes him as a "once in a lifetime teacher."

In the cuts that are proposed as part of our belt-tightening 2011-12 school budget, this teacher would be terminated because he was one of the last teachers hired.

*LIFO = Last In First Out = Policy mandated by New York State law that bases teacher layoffs solely on seniority and not on merit.

Related:  Keep Great Teachers

Follow-up: results of New Rochelle schools survey

I previously posted about this survey designed to gauge voter sentiment regarding school priorities to be considered in developing next year's budget.  No surprise about the results, but the choices offered to respondents were limited.  For example, there were no questions about whether taxpayers wanted union contracts reopened and renegotiated to rein in the cost of benefits.

More than half of the respondents to an online survey by school district officials said maintaining small class sizes was their most important priority.

New Rochelle school district administrators had posted the six-question survey to the district's website for a week last month.

Their aim was to learn what parents, residents and taxpayers thought they, the administrators, ought to be focusing on as they crafted the budget for the 2011-12 school year.

Of the 528 respondents, two-thirds said they are parents or guardians of school-age children.

Keeping class sizes from ballooning was the top concern, with 53.2 percent of the respondents selecting it.

After that, 44.4 percent said preserving advanced placement and other honors classes was most important.

About one-third of the respondents cited having the latest technology in classrooms as their top priority.

"I am not surprised to learn that class size is of critical importance to most people (who) responded to the survey," Superintendent of Schools Richard Organisciak said. "That has historically been the case in this district."

Also, 57.2 percent of the people who answered the survey said it was concerns for programs being added, reduced or eliminated that drove them to the polls to vote on the budget.

A bit less than a quarter of the respondents said it was the prospect of their taxes increasing or decreasing that motivated them to vote.

This assessment of the community's education priorities comes as school officials face daunting challenges in crafting their budgets.

As costs continue to rise, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed cutting $1.5 billion in state aid to schools.

New Rochelle stands to lose $4.3 million if the cuts are enacted.

Discussing the governor's proposal recently, Organisciak said the loss of state aid, combined with other factors, could cost the district some jobs.

"We're going to lose good people," he said.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20110310/NEWS02/103100325/1024/NEWS08/New-Rochelle-parents-rate-small-class-size-AP-courses-technology-priorities 

Trying to keep school costs down, even in wealthy Bronxville

This echos the comments I heard at our local schools community forum last year.

“You hear people say they want Mandarin taught in the sixth grade or they want smaller class size or some other enhancement,” said Julie Meade, president of the Parent Teacher Association and mother of two school-age children. “But they don’t talk about raising taxes to pay for what they advocate. I haven’t heard anyone say raise taxes to pay for quality.”

Some advocate for addressing the compensation issue.

Some residents argue that the town should be more businesslike, cutting other costs to offset the outlay for smaller classes. Peter P. Pulkkinen is one. A 40-year-old investment banker . . . wants small classes . . . But rather than raise taxes, he would restrict the compensation of existing teachers — particularly their benefits.

Displaying a sheaf of charts and projections that he and a friend prepared for a school board meeting, Mr. Pulkkinen said in an interview that if property taxes continued to rise in Bronxville at roughly the trajectory of the last decade, they would double by 2020 — and by 46 percent in the unlikely event the “austerity budgets” of the last two years continued through the decade. “I think it is a false paradigm to have to choose between radically diminished services or exponentially higher taxes,” he said, “without first addressing the structural issue of teacher compensation.”

The choices given to taxpayers are limited, with the compensation issues "off the table".

So far, he said, Dr. Quattrone and the school board have not done so. Instead, they have chosen “soft targets.” One hour a week of Spanish instruction to grade-school students, for example, was eliminated last year.

School employees' compensation has continued to increase, but that doesn't reflect what has happened in the private sector.

“You are looking at a community of people who saw their property taxes go up for years, and now their incomes aren’t going up,”

Even in Wealthy Towns, Schools Feel the Pinch - NYT, 3/8/11

Informative Q & A about school budget issues - compensation and benefits

These FAQ are posted at the Mamaroneck school district website.  It appears they are from last year's budget period, but many are relevant today.  Here are some selected questions from the

Compensation and Benefits section.

Q:  Please explain the teachers' salary structure, including raises and step increases.

 

A:  The teachers salary structure in Mamaroneck, which has been in place since the first contract in the 1960's, is structured similarly to teacher contracts throughout New York State.  The salary chart is a grid, comprised of a series of rows referred to as "steps," which are tied to teaching experience, and a series of columns referred to as "lanes," which represent levels of education.  New teachers are hired onto a "step" within a "lane," based on experience and education level.

 

Each year, ALL teachers receive the contractual cost of living increase; the current contract provides 3.8% for the 2010-11 school year, a rate that was competitive at the time the contract was settled.  In addition, a teacher progresses by a step each year, until s/he reaches the maximum step on the salary schedule.  If a teacher completes enough additional coursework, the teacher is also eligible to move over a lane. There are lanes for each 15 additional units of credit, from a bachelor's degree through a doctorate. Thus, a teacher can receive an increase for the cost of living, for an additional year of experience, and for additional education.

 

Q:  Why does this structure make sense? 

Extracurriculars are important

I believe that the core academic coursework should take precedence over almost everything else when school budgets are being tightened.  But students lose out on so much of educational value when extracurriculars are cut due to lack of funds.  Our local high school drama instructor explained it so well in describing how students benefit from participating in school plays.

Best reason to join the musical:

"I think being in a show makes you a stronger, more fearless person," he says. "Your skills improve; what you think you can do improves.

"I tell everybody, you should join the musical once, just to see what it's like," he says. "In my experience, more often than not kids say they wish they had joined earlier. It just seems to round out a person."

How the musical changes kids:
It puts kids on the right path.  "There are high standards to being in the play," he says. "You have to keep your marks up. If you're not coming to school, you're not (allowed) at rehearsal. Every director would like to say there's a giant emotional change and everybody's going to suddenly start reading epic Russian novels, but I honestly think that they get in the play and they like it and they don't want to screw up and get thrown out."

Review Press: Talking high-school musicals with some of the area's directors

Proposed budget cuts at our middle school

PROPOSED MIDDLE SCHOOL CUTS

All schools have been asked district wide to reduce costs and make cuts in order to reduce the tax increase for 2011-2012 school year.  These are very difficult decisions that will affect the educational program in our district. Dr. Moran has proposed the following cuts. These cuts were made in the hopes of having the least amount of impact on the academic curriculum. 

• Eliminate 10 section chairs. Team leaders would be kept in place. Significant reduction in spending. Dr. Moran and Scott Wynn will take up these responsibilities. 
• Reduce foreign language by .4 raising class size to about 28-30
• Reduce physical education by .4 raising class size
• Reduce health from full year program to half year program
• Reduce operational spending by 15%.
• Eliminate modified sports and all after school clubs with the exception of Yearbook, Boston and Washington Club. Intramural sports would be expanded and offered to 6th, 7th and 8th graders. 

These are only proposed and BOE will be looking at proposed cuts at all schools at upcoming BOE meetings.

ADDED:  This information was distributed by the hard working local middle school PTA leadership.

New Rochelle schools collecting feedback online

This survey from the New Rochelle School District sounds like a positive move, but the design is being criticized as restricting answer choices and failing to capture a sufficiently accurate scope of  views.

As the budget season nears, and with the prospect of a 2 percent cap on property tax on the horizon, New Rochelle school officials are asking the public to participate.
The district last week launched a six-question survey (one of the questions has eight parts) on its website, www.nred.org. It asks respondents to rate the importance of such issues as class size; preserving advanced-placement classes and electives like psychology; the use of up-to-date technology in class; and junior varsity and varsity athletics.....
"No school district in this state can shy away from the fact that there will need to be cuts and reductions," he said. "We're just trying to figure out where everybody stands."

http://www.lohud.com/article/20110208/NEWS02/102080322/New-Rochelle-schools-seek-feedback-via-web 

Among the comments to the story:

I work as a research analyst and 6 questions won't really tell you anything

The Talk of the Sound blog labels the survey a "farce".
Here are the survey questions:

1. Please read each area on the left and select the description from the row above that best defines, for you, how important the area is for the schools and community.

I. Up-to-date technology in classrooms and its use in our schools
II. Current class sizes
III. Clubs at the MS and HS, like Math Club or Yearbook
IV. JV and Varsity Athletics
V. Middle School Athletics
VI. Band, Orchestra, Chorus and Art at the Elementary Level
VII. Preserving AP Classes, like Statistics or other advanced/honors classes
VIII. Preserving HS electives, like Psychology

a. Essential and critical to the school district’s mission
b. Very important to our mission and worth preserving at almost all costs
c. Good to have, but not essential for our district
d. Not important enough to preserve in a time of fiscal constraint
e. No opinion.

2. Do you have any comments about the importance of the categories listed above that you’d like to share?

3. Please tell us a little bit about yourself. You are a:

Parent/guardian of a current private school student
Community member without a child in school
Parent/guardian of current school age student
Student

4. If you are a parent or student in the District, please indicate the grade level(s) you or your child(ren) attend.

Elementary School
Middle School
High School

5. Over the past 10 years, how would you describe your voting consistency with regard to school elections?

Poor – I have voted in only a small number of school elections
Average – I have voted in about half of the school elections
Exceptional – I have voted in every election
Awful – I have not voted in ANY school elections
Very Good – I have voted in most school elections

6. When you think about what motivates you to come to the polls for a school election, which answer best fits how you feel?

I am most motivated by taxes being raised or lowered.
I am most motivated by programs added, reduced, or eliminated.
I am most motivated by the Board of Education election.
I am most motivated by the desire to exercise the right to vote.

Westchester school tax groups aim for "critical mass"

As the economy has tanked over the past few years and property taxes in many communities have grown well into the five figures, taxpayer groups and individual advocates have increasingly been raising red flags over school spending and organizing to push for flat budgets.

Citizen groups have organized in the Bedford, Blind Brook and Chappaqua school districts. 

Until now, said Elinor Griffith, one of the leaders of the group, "it's sort of like everyone's inventing the wheel on their own." Now the groups are sharing information on things like New York labor law and strategies for getting information out. New Castle Citizens for Responsible Education recently started its Freeze the Budget blog after seeing the one in Blind Brook....
Albany also comes under fire for setting pension policy and, through the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law, allowing contract provisions to stay in place during negotiations. But the groups are encouraged now by the talk of passing a property tax cap. They're also encouraged they've found each other."If we can get critical mass," Marcus said, "I feel our voice becomes louder across the county and also locally."

http://www.lohud.com/article/20110214/NEWS02/102140316/Westchester-school-tax-groups-joining-forces-in-fight-to-hold-down-spending 

Here are some websites:

Blind Brook -
http://freezethebudget.wordpress.com/

Chappaqua -
http://newcastle-citizensforresponsibleeducation.org/home
http://newcastle-citizensforresponsibleeducation.org/blog1/