Cheating for children

Each year as school budgets are put before the voters in New York State, school districts face the possibility of rejection by the voters.  How much is too much? What will tip the scales and bring out the majority of residents with no children in the district to defeat the budget?  What chaos will ensue for the coming school year?

School districts no longer have to worry .  By using the Valhalla method of preparing the contingent budget. you can convince voters that the contingent (formerly the austerity) budget will be every bit as high as the proposed budget.  In fact with a little bit of creativity, your contingent budget can actually surpass the proposed budget!  Take that taxpayers, vote no and pay more.

Unbelievable but true.  What the board in  Valhalla did last year overstated the contingent budget by $1,005,000.  They simply moved a couple of entries on the contingent budget worksheet, so they would not calculate correctly, then added an undocumented and illegal line item, calling it "Expenditures attributable to FAPE".  Immediately the difference between the proposed budget and the contingent budget disappeared!

Any district can do it.  Create your own line, call it "Stuff we can't live without", then change the formulas on the worksheet.  Add an Artificial Turf Field, a new track,

school attire for the staff and board of education, bonuses for the business manager.  Subsidize a daycare center.  Be sure to  pander to every parent in the district.  Anything will work.  And best of all, there are no consequences- None.  .  Complaints, if any, fall on deaf ears at state ed and, as always, the Commissioner will find some way to rule in your favor.  

Don't let ethics stand in your way, keep the opposition at home, keep the dollars flowing, use the Valhalla method of padding your  budget.  Valhalla does it, you can too, you know it's all for the children!

This matter has been brought to the attention of the NY State Comptroller's office which now has an audit of the Valhalla school district pending.

Well  Valhalla, has sunk to a new low, using not only kids but town and county assets to promote a yes vote on the budget.   

A special Children's Vote Program was initiated this year. The children grades k through 5 were told to bring their parents to the polls where special voting machines were set up for the children to vote on whether they wanted a rock climbing wall or a running path installed at VRS and the Kensico school, if the vote passed.  They were told to encourage their parents to vote yes or they would not get the wall or path.

Apparently county machines were set up in the 3 voting places marked with "Children's Vote" banners and flyers. The result, the budget passed. 

Valhalla is already being audited by the state comptroller for illegally padding their budget and leasing an unused school building for $1 a year to Easter Seals can't stop the unethical and illegal behavior. 

I wonder if we can offer free blood pressure screeenings for seniors next year at each polling place.

But what the heck, it's all for the children.


That's absolutely incredible. Somebody needs to file a lawsuit over that. The school board should pass a policy that prohibits such conduct.

3.   Dr. Kelly even applied, with his tenant, Easter Seals, to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services for a day care license before the board voted to enter into negotiations on a lease.  Click the Kool aid kid below to see the First Draft of the lease prepared by school attorneys at the direction of the superintendent and business manager at taxpayer expense. 

5. Valhalla pays for maintenance and utilities on the building.  The 90,000  dollar annual payment which the district claims as rent is a reimbursement for utilities, snow removal and maintenance that any other tenant would pay  in addition to market rent and it is all that Easter Seals pays.

6. The superintendent’s claim that Easter Seals paid 500,000 dollar for "improvements" to Columbus Avenue, is completely undocumented. The lease requires  Easter Seals to provide such documentation to the school district and the  New York State office of Children and Family  services must review and approve such improvements. Neither the district nor the Office of  Children and Family services has any proposal, permit, invoice or correspondence evidencing any major capital improvements.  Please visit the Columbus Avenue site.  See the broken retaining wall, the rusted swings, broken and in disrepair.  See the broken iron fence just a few feet from the main entrance.  See the broken chain link fence.  Our tenant is not even keeping up the property, much less improving it.

9. To secure board approval of the $1 a year lease, school board members were told that if the district received market rent, the district would have to pay School, Town and County real estate taxes on the property.   The truth is school districts are never subject to paying real estate taxes.

10.  In a districtwide mailing Sideshow Tom Kelly claimed that Easter Seals had committed to installing playground improvements at the Columbus Avenue School.  Really?  We are four years into their sweetheat (illegal) lease and there are no improvements.  In September, 2005 Easter Seals held a fundraising golf tournament with the specific purpose of raising funds to install a new playground at the Columbus Avenue School.  It is May 2006 and the playground has not been touched.  It is still falling apart, not even maintained.             
 
School Districts are government agencies organized to operate under the laws of the State of New York.  Employees of the school district and even boards of education are not permitted to use tax dollars to subsidize privately run, un-mandated pre-school and after-school programs. By ignoring state law requiring districts to lease property belonging to the taxpayers at market rent, the board of education is effectively subsidizing Easter Seals, a Park Ave corporation, and its clients.  Should school tax dollars subsidize similar programs at Holy Name of Jesus and the Methodist Church? After all, these benefit working mothers, too. 
 
The resources of the school district must be directed to the education of the children of the district who are of age and only as prescribed by law.  This matter has been brought to the attention of the New York State Comptroller's Department and after completion of their audit, the board should sell the property, applying all proceeds to outstanding debt of the district.

Update 2006- Part of this year's budget side show is floating the idea that a 6th grade academy could be housed at the Columbus Avenue School.  In 1998 they told us that CAS did not even meet minumum NYSED standards for a schoolhouse.  They told us we had to close it and build a new $16 million building, twice the size of CAS.  Expect that this ruse will come up every year to divert attention from the real issue.  The building is costing the taxpayer in excess of  300,000 dollars a year in hard money and millions more in opportunity costs.  We can't afford to fix it, we will pay  23,500 per student in 2007.  

Update- A special mailing was done by Easter Seals to Valhalla residents for a golf fund raiser which will "benefit" the design and installation of a new playground at the dollar a year school.  I is now the middle of spring 2006 and the playground at CAS is still falling appart.   This is no more of a direct benefit for a new playground than the 300,000 that Valhalla taxpayers annually pay to subsidize this Park Avenue corporation.  In the three years Easter Seals has occupied CAS, not one cent has been spent on maintaining the existing playground which is falling apart.  They have even stopped picking up the trash that piles up around the building.