Rockland Writes: Blasting Holes in the Reasoning Behind Raising the ERCSD Budget

 I am writing this as I simply cannot stand by as Yiddish money is s being burned for no good reason. I am speaking about the ERCSD school budget vote today, where if the public votes NO on the budget, it won’t cost Yiddish money.

One question that is often asked is why East Ramapo residents have to pay such high taxes to support the school district if Albany allocates 40 billion dollars in funding for education. The simple truth is that districts do not receive identical amounts of funding. Less affluent districts are granted more resources while wealthier districts receive less.

Albany determines which districts need more money by using a formula that considers the number of public-school students and the number of properties in each district. Since property taxes fund the schools, the formula assigns properties based on the number of children attending public schools. This formula works for most districts, but it is not a fair system for East Ramapo where the majority of students attend private schools. This means only a small percentage of the district is counted against the properties, making it appear to be a wealthy district while according to census data, East Ramapo residents are actually among the poorest districts.

And while Albany is well aware of their faulty formula, the current formula for funding distribution allows Albany to save a minimum of 12 to 15 million dollars per year leaving the powers that be with little motivation to revise the current formula.

Some softhearted individuals have asked, if the budget is defeated, will public school children miss out on an education leading to the emergence of criminals and posing a threat to everyone. We need to recognize the fact that we are not accountable for other people’s children's education. Especially as it is Albany who is depriving them of their education, and it is not our responsibility to fix that.

As for the present budget, Albany allocated an additional forty million dollars to East Ramapo this year, in addition to their annual funding. Consequently, the district has adequate funds to operate for the next five years, while ERCSD intends to put away 28 million dollars for future use while raising our taxes now because they can and because they assert that if the voters are incapable of making responsible decisions and reject the proposed budget in the upcoming five years, the district will end up in financial ruin. Therefore, they advocate for a budget that increases taxes now, as they have little confidence in the voter's intelligence and foresight.

So, in a nutshell: the current budget's tax increase is not going towards improving education, and Albany continues to discriminate against black and Latino students in East Ramapo by denying us our fair share of funding. Perhaps, if East Ramapo becomes the only district in New York to defeat its budget proposals, it will catch Albany's attention, and they will be compelled to rectify their flawed funding formula, which is not suitable for East Ramapo, and start allocating funds according to our actual needs.

In closing, I just want to emphasize that it's important for all eligible voters in East Ramapo to go out and vote today. We have an opportunity to decide whether we want to waste our money, and I'm sure I don't need to advise you on what choice to make.

Every vote counts, and it's important that the residents have a say in how their tax dollars are being spent. In this case it’s a no-brainer that we should vote NO on the budget to prevent a potential tax hike.

Ezra Kahn 

The opinions expressed here are the writer's and do not necessarily reflect the views of Rockland Daily.