Airports, nursing homes, police departments: what can we afford?
Just before Christmas, Chris Knight ran a fascinating piece in the Adirondack Enterprise looking at the future of the Lake Clear airport.
The Harrietstown-run facility operates with massive federal subsidies. But a sharp decline in fuel sales at the airport forced local leaders to slash funding for other programs and services.
Town supervisor Larry Miller has argued that locals should continue expanding and upgrading the facility.
"It is a viable service to the community and has a $15 million economic impact on the Tri-Lakes," he told the Enterprise.
But with New York state slashing aid to local governments and property tax revenues likely to contract in coming years, programs like this will face closer and closer scrutiny.
Essex County is already debating closure of the nursing home in Elizabethtown; the village of Port Henry is considering dissolution, and North Country communities continue to debate the costs and benefits of everything from local police departments to ski hills.
This afternoon I interviewed Chris Hoene, an expert on local government finances with the National League of Cities.
He's convinced that local communities are still at the beginning of this budget crisis. Things will get much worse before they get better.
"It's not going to be one of those situations where there can just be tweaks around the margins," Hoene said. "There are going to be wholesale services that just aren't there anymore."
The problem is that revenues -- sales and property taxes, and state aid -- are all stagnant or shrinking, just as health care and pension costs are soaring.
"So it's not one of those cases where local officials can just say, 'If we get through next year, we'll probably be okay.'" Hoene added.
Harrietstown officials are convinced that their community would face significant Federal penalties if they tried to close or downsize the airport.
Similar concerns have been raised about proposed cuts to local education and social programs.
But as local leaders and residents look to redefine the role of town and county governments, we may have to begin demanding something new from Albany and Washington DC.
(See this related story from St. Lawrence County's legislature on the Dec. 30 news page.)
Not more cash in the form of taxpayer subsidies. Our state and Federal governments are broke, which means those taxpayer subsidies are no longer reliable.
What we need now is the flexibility to make our own painful choices.
What do we consider to be essential services? How much are we willing to pay for them?
I'm guessing we'll have to answer some of these questions in the months ahead.
posted by Brian Mann @ 12/29/2009 03:58:00 PM
21 Comments
21 Comments:
Not airports.
We can afford these things, but it will come at the expense of our consumer society. Like the guns and butter choice, we can no longer afford both. It might mean getting by with one car and without that $10,000 snowmobile or $2000 canoe.
If we don't pay for some of these things as a society, such as nursing homes, schools, etc. they will come out of individual family expenses which means less discretionary spending. To the extent the whole thing is a giant make work project i.e. jobs created to meet wants rather than needs--there will be further economic decline as some of those related jobs disappear.
When we're going to spend about a trillion dollars on the so-called "defense budget" in the coming year, I think discussing the closing nursing homes, police departments and other local services is kind of off the mark - isn't it?
Why keep asking on this blog what we're willing to do without, without questioning the biggest expenditure of all?
At December 30, 2009 5:35 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said.
Makes you wonder why there is a shortage of teacher applicants for high school positions and qualified substitutes are impossible to find and no school can get enough bus drivers? Hmmm? Maybe the problem is before they ever see a public school?
I know, why don't you become State certified to become a teacher and lead the way? You know, show some real initiative and courage and do something about it.
You should know before you begin your journey that it is not like the " old days." Those students that don't want to be there, are behave badly and do nothing are not sent off to wood shop or typing class anymore. They are held to the same academic standard as those students that work hard. Know you will be judged by their performance also. But hey, you can do it, you are special.
I would gladly except paying teachers what we currently pay them so long as we fixed the horrorendeous tenure system which protects incompetence and laziness (though the superintendents and school baords who give tenure to incompetent teachers are partly to blame) and lengthened the school year. In Japan they have school on Saturdays.
I also I know people with teaching degrees who cannot find work as teachers (though at least one of them is not up to the job).
"I also I know people with teaching degrees who cannot find work as teachers (though at least one of them is not up to the job)."
Tell them to move. New York City has to pay people from foreign countries to come there and teach. They are not even certified, they get an exemption. Go South, go West, go where the jobs are. Hawaii will put you up in apartments near the schools. Tell them to get certified in math and science. Tell the colleges to stop handing out Elementary Teaching degrees when there are 50 for every job that opens. They may as well give them degrees to be key punch operators. Everybody has to be creative and think differently.
If they are young enough tell them to enlist, the military needs bright, committed people.
I see your point, but everybody has to stop thinking that anything is a given anymore. Teachers are laid off and not replaced when they retire at the same rate as the rest of society. It is a "Brave New World," and this is a new paradigm for everybody.
On topic: There are NO "sacred cows" anymore. No agency or service is going to be spared the next few years. This has been coming for a long, long time. We have been a pyramid scheme economy for twenty years.
One of the reasons we don’t have the money to maintain infrastructure and government services is the problem of institutions that are using services but not paying for them. Take Clarkson University for example. Although they know how to line up with their hand out and receive millions in government funding every year, they don‘t pay for the services supplied by the local government. They pay for water use. They pay for sewer use. The law allows them not to pay for fire protection, police protection, ambulance service, and other municipal services. They do not pay taxes on property leased to outside vendors that compete with village businesses that do pay taxes. They use various strategies to avoid paying taxes on property they no longer use for educational purposes. The laws concerning what services they are exempt from paying for, especially those services supplied by local government, need drastic changes. There are institutions other than colleges and universities that should also be charged fees for services like fire, police, and ambulance. As long as we are subsidizing these non-taxable institutions, we won’t have the funds to maintain our services, bridges and roads.
December 31, 2009 4:17 PM
The age old problem that every community that has a College or University. They drive our local economy and most likely are the biggest employer, but they do not come without a price tag.
Let me ask you this. If they were not here, and they were looking for a place to build and exist, would you writing that we should do all we can to get them to locate here?
I suspect the answer is yes. Much of the land taxes and local taxes is paid by people who work at those schools. They would not live here if those schools were not here. It would be nice to see the different groups work together to make the whole better.
A tax break to get a new business with lots of jobs. Absolutely! That, however, is not the issue for several reasons.
1. When Clarkson built the Clarkson Inn, the deal they got was something like 50% less tax the first year and then increasing 5% a year until they were paying the full tax after ten years. Sometimes, tax breaks even last 20 years. They are not permanent. They are intended to help a start-up business succeed. Fine, I have no problem with that. Clarkson University, however, has been here for a very long time. They are just abusing the system.
2. I am not seeking to have Clarkson pay taxes on the assessed value of the campus. I am seeking to have them pay a fee for services like they do for water and sewer.
3. While I agree this is a problem in many places, few institutions are as parsimonious with the municipalities they are in. The yearly contribution of the University of $30,000 to the village has not been increased for more than a decade. It is also only a few percent of what St. Lawrence University contributes to the Canton community.
In re-reading, I see I left one point unanswered. I'd like to add the following.
4. If Clarkson was not here, and all that population was not here, the services needed would be at a much lower level. The population and taxes would be in balance. Right now, 9500 residents are paying for the services needed by an additional 4000 people. That 4000 is a subset of the population requires a disproportionate amount of services.
"The yearly contribution of the University of $30,000 to the village has not been increased for more than a decade."
Excellent point. I guess that is where I hope the parties work through it. You are right, in services they receive far more than they pay for. The properties like the old "Star lake Campus" and the ski and lodge that SLU owned were tax exempt in their day too no doubt.
No one likes to go near the question of Churches and other non profits and " using " of the system. Your argument is a good one. It can only be corrected through the courts I would think.
10:44 AM, I couldn't have said it better myself.
Could you please run for public office?
From 1995 to 2005 184 tenured teachers in NY were terminated. That's it. It costs NYC schools $250,000 to fire a tenured teacher.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25430476/ Firing a tenured teacher is so expensive and time consuming that few districts actually do it.
When deciding whether or not to grant tenure school boards are prohibited from looking at how well students perform on state exams.
The system is broken and bad teachers are being protected at the expense of students.
And there is no need for a hearing to decertify a teacher. Once convicted they should automatically be decertified and terminated. Enough with all the red tape.
9:47 AM,
"When you are taking away someone’s profession as well as his or her livelihood, it should be done with a careful, thoughtful, and unbiased process."
Isn't that achieved at a trial?
I'm not saying tenure is bad per se just that it is need of an overhaul and I won't support pouring any more money into education until it is. The US spends more on a per student basis than any other country in the world. And NY spends more than any state in the country. So when it comes to spending this state is a true outlier.
Yet the results have not been less than stellar and I strongly believe that the failure to dismiss non-performing teachers and the uncooperative behaivor of many students are the reasons why.
Here is a chart showing the dismissal process for tenured teachers. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2406704/How-To-Fire-An-Incompetent-Teacher
Though it does reference NYC schools so the process may differ slightly from North Country schools. My high school once had to go to considerable effort and expense to terminate a teacher who embezzled thousands of dollars from the school.
In truth many of the teachers who should be terminated are not bad people or unintelligent but rather are unable to exercise classroom control. Almost anyone who has graduated from a public school in the past 20 years can attest to this fact.
In addition, the use of student performance data should be used in making employment decisions.
Teachers whose students significantly and repeatedly underperform on state tests relative to similar school districts should be subject to automatic termination.
4:30 again, I want to add that I would like to see NCPR do a story on teacher tenure.
I would like to address the issue of teaching being a part-time job. The school day is only part of the time spent on the job. After the school day and in the evening a teacher must plan lessons and units; grade and correct; construct tests, quizzes and worksheets; contact parents; attend faculty, department and/or grade level meetings; fill out reports for Family Court, Child Protective Services, the Probation Department, the Committee on Special Education, etc.; participate in ongoing professional education and stay current with the subject(s) you teach. This varies by what level and what subject is being taught. Teachers are also their own secretaries so whatever they generate, they must word process and duplicate. They also do their own budgeting and purchasing. Typically teachers spend $400 to $600 of their own money on supplies and even equipment for their classrooms. Anyone who thinks teaching is a part-time is simply uninformed.
There seems to be an assumption here that public employees, whether teachers or others, are incompetent. Saying something is true doesn’t make it true. I’ve been looking back over the last year and the government services I’ve used. I renewed the my car registration and got an enhanced drivers license at the Canton DMV and had no problems. I get water and sewer service from the village and no problems. I paid my local taxes, received correct bills and received correct receipts. My street is in good condition and the sidewalks are plowed so I don’t have to shovel them early in the morning before the kids walk to school. I needed a new birth certificate and clerk’s office did it in one day. I have always found the local police, state police, fire department, and ambulance service very reliable. My children graduated from the local public schools and went on to get four year college degrees. Over the years, we have used the library, arena, and village beach and always found them well maintained and safe.
Where is all this public sector incompetence that is mentioned over and over without example or any kind of data? Once again, saying something is true doesn’t make it true.
Wow! Four free periods! I am putting in an application to that non-existent school ASAP! I have heard this one before, except it is usually three free periods. Stories tend to grow the more times they are told.
I teach six periods a day, supervise one study hall, and have one free period, and a lunch period. That is typical in the North Country. At a recent holiday party, when I heard this “free period“ story, I asked for an explanation.
I was told that the local high school had this number of periods per day and then this is how many periods teachers had assigned tasks. Subtract one from the other and there are three free periods. Wonder of wonders, the analysis was not reality based. You see, there were three lunch periods at that school. Each of the half-hour periods were numbered like any other period. Of course, academic periods overlap these lunch periods when teachers are teaching classes that go on at the same time with a different period number. If you look at the number of periods only, there are three periods a teacher does not teach. If you look at reality and accept that a person can not have a free period and be teaching at the same time, the number of free periods is one.
What is done on free periods is extremely variable. Typically, I use mine to duplicate materials, deal with the office, guidance, special ed., check with the librarian about needed resources, use the facilities, and, yes, get a cup of coffee. Early in my career, I used to be able to call Moms as well, but the great majority of Moms work now so that is rare.
There is a seething resentment against teachers and school employees in general. Much of it is based on misconception, myth, and outright lies. The legitimate criticism needs to be taken seriously and addressed appropriately. This “four free periods a day” story is just one example of the kind of criticism that just stirs up resentment in the public and in teachers without producing any positive change.
Thanks to all contributing to this blog. It is important to get these issues out in the open.
what about the after classes free period which occurs during extra-curricular activities?
A free period after school hours? I don’t know what you mean by that. When my school day ends, I am required to stay for 15 minutes but getting ready for the next day usually takes around an hour. My school cut non-sport extra-curricular activities in the early nineties and we don’t have a period like that. Even then, if you didn’t offer an activity, you were supervising students who did not participate in extra-curricular activities in a study hall setting.
In any case, a teacher is hired to teach and that includes the whole process from planning to grading. Whatever time it takes, it takes. It takes about two to three hours per day longer than the time spent in the classroom. More early in your career. Some stay after school is out, some come in early, and some prefer to do the work at home. We are not hourly employees.
Generally, unless you change grade levels or subjects, you don't start from scratch every year. Some lessons work, some lessons need to be improved, and some lessons need to be replaced. It varies a great deal. Any lesson using computers needs to be revised with every change in software or hardware. There are revisions in the state curriculum that change lessons. In the past decade, I've made many changes in response to the new state testing. If you are teaching something that has not changed, and your lesson works, you may keep it until there is a reason to change it. With special ed. students mainstreamed, you may need to prepare a modified lesson materials for each of those students.
The big change in preparing lesson plans in the use of the internet. If your lesson is not working or you just want a fresh approach, a teacher can go on the internet and see thousands of lesson plans. I never use a plan from the internet exactly as is but you can get many new ideas by reading them. I try to look at a least one lesson plan on the internet every weekday. Remember that every group of students is different and even if the lesson plan is the same, it is not a script and lessons are never the same twice. Student reaction and questions change a lesson as you deliver it. To a degree, teaching is a performance art.
I don’t think that older teachers, like me, use the internet as much as the under forties do but other than that, I think this describes what most teacher do.
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