Every year at this time our television sets and radios carry commercials bought and paid for by the New York State United Teachers.
What’s their message?
They want you to vote in favor of the multi-million-dollar school budgets that go before school district residents statewide every mid-May.
Why do they want you to vote yes for the expenditures? They say it’s for the school kids, but the real reason is because the lion’s share of the money goes to teachers.
That’s right, a full 70 percent of the budgeted funds go to its employees in the form of salaries, benefits and pensions.
No wonder they want you to vote yes. They don’t want you to derail their gravy train.
So this budget-ballot season, NYSUT is spending a hefty $2 million dollars on its annual ad campaign. Ironically, that money originally comes out of your own pockets! That’s right, school district taxpayers pay the teachers, the teachers pay their union dues, and the union spends the money on TV, radio and newspaper ads designed to convince you to keep their gravy train chugging down the track.
They’re using your own money to get you to do what’s best for their financial futures.
What a sweet deal for the teachers!
And what do the taxpayers get out of it? They get a false and fleeting feeling of satisfaction that they’ve done something good “for the kids.” Yeah, sure, for the kids…
Consolidation coming
Hey, it doesn’t really matter whether you vote yes or no on the school budget.
In those rare years when voters reject the proposal not once but twice, the district automatically adopts a contingency budget which is a minuscule half-million or so dollars less than the proposed budget which was voted down.
To truly fix this abomination, the entire educational system needs a complete overhaul. Eventually, we’re going to have to consolidate. Do we really need 18 different school districts in Onondaga County? Only if we want property owners to go broke paying for them.
Thank goodness that Gov. Andrew Cuomo refuses to drink NYSUT’s Kool-Aid. He knows we’re spending far too much money on our schools. As a result, NYSUT hates him with a passion. But we taxpayers desperately need visionaries such as Cuomo who will tell it like it is, stand up to special interests and start the wheels rolling toward meaningful reform.
Thousand Islands mystery
My friend, Eric Roberts – not the movie star but the Liverpool advertising expert – has co-produced a new television documentary which delved into the provenance of Thousand Island salad dressing. Roberts and Andrea Reeves, a graphic designer who works at WCNY-TV on Old Liverpool Road, will unveil their findings when “The Mysterious Origin of Thousand Island Dressing,” is broadcast at 9 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, on WCNY-TV Channel 24.
Roberts and Reeves consider three possible sources of the recipe: a local fishing guide’s wife, a chef from Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel and Broadway star May Irwin who passed it along to George Boldt, the proprietor of NYC’s Waldorf-Astoria.
Village-wide yard sale
Garages will be open, driveways will be full of merchandise and front yards will overflow with antiques, used furniture and old appliances as the village of Liverpool hosts its semi-annual village-wide garage sale Friday, Saturday and Sunday May 11, 12 and 13.
Word to the wise: by Sunday, almost all the good stuff has been picked; 457-3441.
