Letter to the Editor: How the School District Should View the Budget Failure

The Three Village School District Board of Education, Administration, and Teachers Union should take the failure of its tax cap busting budget as a message that:

1. Residents were appalled at their arrogance in endorsing Bill Conners for BOE, the president of the BOE when it bought out Superintendent Sonedecker’s contract for $180,000; did not report his wrongdoing to the District Attorney for prosecutorial investigation and/or action; and did not inform the community that it caught Sonedecker misusing school funds for personal use.

2. That this community will not approve the astronomical tax increase (perhaps 13 percent) that will be necessary to pay the deferred contract increases due to the teachers in 2014. Further, that the teacher contract had better be renegotiated if there are not to be mass teacher layoffs and the mass program cuts that follow from a staff reduction.

This will certainly be the result of a failed cap busting budget, if as in the past, the Teachers Union refuses real pay freezes, cuts, or higher member contributions to pensions and health care, which would save programs for the kids. It is time for the teachers' union to show us that it is really is about the children, not all about the money.

– Jacqueline Rudman