Two Referendums Will Hammer Taxpayers

The elected elite, “lifers” if you will, in the Town of Greenburgh, know that holding a referendum for anything they want virtually assures passage of any and every idea, program or proposal – no matter how convoluted it may be. Such is the case for the Greenburgh Central School District with the proposed sale of two existing schools so the GCSD can build one replacement school on the Warburg campus where the Woodlands High School is located. And, to add insult to injury, Mr Feiner is proposing selling the current Greenburgh Police Headquarters and Court building and building a new headquarters and courthouse with his own referendum.

Remarkably, the school bond referendum proposal, if passed, is going to cost homeowner and commercial taxpayers in the Greenburgh Central School District about $850 per year. Mr Feiner has stated that the police headquarters proposal should only increase those same people’s taxes by about $41 based on a bond issue of $23 million for a $500,000 property – a veritable bargain comparatively! However, we do not know how he arrived at that number since it is unknown where it would be built, how much the current buildings/property could be sold for and no site plans have been created. We do know that he has a bad habit of simply making up numbers with no data to back them up. The two referendum’s vote will invariably not be tied together but could spell a world of hurt for those on fixed incomes, living primarily off of Social Security or that have medical issues and expenses that even a small shift in expense might force them out of their homes.

We’ve been told that approximately 30% of residents with school age children in the Greenburgh Central School District utilize private schools for any of a number of reasons. These could be for religious beliefs, location/proximity as well as the poor reputation of the Greenburgh school system and schools. Some say they are improving. Perhaps. But many residents don’t want to take a chance with their child’s education only to find out otherwise when it is too late. And, while we can hire good teachers, pay generous salaries, exceptional health benefits and retirement pensions, scandals and misbehavior such as what took place with disgraced Greenburgh Schools Superintendent Ronald O. Ross affect all of us directly and indirectly. (see our articles from Friday, May 9, 2014 Hypocritical Supervisor – Anti-Jewish: Bad, Racist: Best of The Best and Friday, September 26, 2014 Greenburgh School Superintendent Finally Terminated)

We understand that some resident taxpayers will be in favor of anything oriented to education. In fact, the Edgemont school system, which is ranked nationally as one of the best, seems to bear this out. Perhaps it has a better cultural component that helps propel their district to the level of excellence it has achieved. Perhaps the easily obtained financial resources, at least compared to other areas of the Town, parental involvement and other factors contribute to this. A Hartsdale Neighborhood Association resident has questioned whether or not the rest of Greenburgh even cares about the Hartsdale area? Of course, we do. But Hartsdale is not Edgemont and Fairview is not Hartsdale. An $850 (school bond)+ $50 (PD station bond) can be a crippling amount for many outside of the affluent neighborhoods to endure.

Sadly, we also recognize that many will say, “It’s for the kids,” and blindly go along with whatever is proposed, never realizing that very little is actually for the kids and more for personnel costs and other expense. What the budgets, proposals and in this case, referendum are really doing is trying to sanitize years of mismanagement of the Greenburgh Central School District and its resources. This “consolidation” is being as touted as beneficial for the kids. The brochure that the school district sent out has a lot of cherry-picked information to paint a bright picture of the 2019 Capital Project News report without mentioning how expensive this bond proposal will be. It does mention that it would cost $79 million dollars to make needed repairs to the district’s schools.

What isn’t mentioned is why the schools were left to languish in the first place? In a district whose budgets have passed every year, to the point where many have never even heard of an austerity budget, could it be that the Greenburgh School Board decided to leave the buildings in disrepair instead of maintaining them, as did Mr Feiner with WestHelp, so they could make a pitch to jettison two and build two new ones on the Warburg campus to fulfill Dr Chase’s dream?

A $900 tax increase is not only unbearable to many, it’s an insult. As much as we find Mr Feiner’s phony adherence to the NYS 2% tax cap almost laughable, it does highlight the need to lower or at least reduce the tax burden to our Town – along with the guilty verdict payouts that besiege us from this administration. While some will counter that the new school extravaganza will increase property values for some, we believe it will cripple others. Dr Chase has already reduced her original plan down to this $114.6 million one. While she may believe her plan is the first step towards the future of the Greenburgh School District, we’re not sure. The expression “putting lipstick on a pig to make it look better” is what this appears to be.

Put the lipstick away, bring out your calculators and start devising a plan to repair our buildings and school systems. Worry less about teaching Mandarin from Kindergarten through High School. Turn around the negative reputation of the schools. Change the paradigm so that 30% of our taxpaying residents with school age children cease using private schools and go to the Greenburgh Schools. Then come to us with ideas and suggestions about consolidation or anything else. In the meantime, put the lipstick away and fix what you have. That’s what we can afford and what will make for A Better Greenburgh.