The Double Dip

Student fights state double-dipping
Montgomery native wants loophole cut
By John Sullivan
Times Herald-Record
Published: 2:00 AM - 02/21/11
Montgomery — With recent news of double-dipping state legislators igniting reader anger in newspaper opinion pages and elsewhere, Colin Schmitt half-expected a revolution in state government.

But no such upheaval has come among the majority of rank-and-file state Senate and Assembly members, so Schmitt has decided to lead the way on his own.

"Maybe sometimes a public outcry is enough, but sometimes you need continuous pressure," Schmitt said about his grass-roots campaign to eliminate a loophole that allows certain elected officials to earn pensions as well as full salaries.

The campaign — "Stop NY Double Dip" — is a special project of Schmitt's political action committee, New Dawn, formed in May to help a new generation of leaders take office.

Schmitt, a Montgomery native who became a legislative aide for Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt, R-C-Greenwood Lake, when he was just 14, hopes to be among those who fill a representative position one day, he said.

He launched stopnydoubledip.com last week to promote a petition drive to close the loophole allowing elected state officials serving before 1995 to concurrently collect their pension and full salary.

Schmitt would also urge creating a retroactive change requiring elected leaders collecting both incomes to choose one or the other.

He would also support a pending bill sponsored by state Sen. Greg Ball and Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick to remove politicians from the pension system and move them to 401(k) plans.

State legislators, such as Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun, R-C-Blooming Grove, and Sen. Bill Larkin, R-C-New Windsor, collect both pension and salary. They contend they are utilizing a benefit available to all state employees.

The payment of pensions in addition to salaries is considered a necessary evil in the public sector, as agencies compete for talent with private-sector jobs that pay a lot more, acknowledge some public policy experts.

But the perception of unfairness is hard to argue with.

"I've talked to a lot of people, who are struggling, and seeing someone who can just snap their fingers to get additional benefits without having to work a second job or anything is really disheartening," said Schmitt, a junior studying politics at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

There are currently 16 members of the state Senate and 46 members of the state Assembly eligible to collect pensions and salaries at the same time, according to Schmitt's research.

"If all those 62 cashed in, it would cost the state nearly $3.5 million a year," he said.

Schmitt plans to spend a good part of his non-study time collecting signatures for his campaign, he said. Saturday, going door to door in the Village of Montgomery, he collected some 50-55 signatures, adding to a list of some 250 responses he's gotten to his website, he said.

"Whether I'm the lone voice standing in the field or not, I'll be talking about this and kicking dirt about it until the next state election in 2012," he said.

Our School Districts (seen from Upstate)

From Websterpost.com

By Matt Schaertl

From WebsterCanandaigua, N.Y. — There is a need for serious review of school funding, but if you think there is waste in the Finger Lakes, take a look downstate.

In Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt’s district, just northwest of New York City, is the Kiryas Joel School District. The district was founded by the ultra-orthodox Jewish community to educate special-needs children. On their website, they say they provide a “broad array of services in an efficient, professional and expeditious manner” and that the school “has truly been an exemplary partnership, which has made this such a successful American experiment.” Yes, it is a very successful experiment — in showing how not to run a school district.

Kiryas Joel collects $15,000 less from the local residents, per student, than the average school district. Why? They don’t need it. They collect $19,000 per student in state aid — which is 700 percent more than New York’s average school district receives. Worse, they collect $39,000 per student from the federal government every year. Blood boiling yet?

With Victor at $13 and Canandaigua hovering around $50 for “unclassified employee benefits” per pupil, KJSD is spending a whopping $11,543 per year, per student.

I am only speculating, but perhaps teacher benefits there include free mortgage payments. On the plus side, they do have only one-quarter the debt per student as the average district. Hey — kudos to KJSD for almost balancing your checkbook!

In total, America spends $110,884 per student per year for every public school student in that school district. That equates to $1,441,492 of taxes to produce ONE high school diploma. It would be less expensive to pay every student what an enlisted soldier earns from the time they enter kindergarten until they turn 75. It would be cheaper to educate those students by providing each their own individual teacher, plus allow that teacher to spend twice the state’s average cost.

Three miles from that district is the Monroe-Woodbury school system. They too spend more per pupil than any of our local districts, but at $19,088 per student I’d take it. The average home in that district is valued at $250,000 with an average family income 60 percent higher than the state average. Yet the residents pay $2,000 less per student locally than the typical school district. As far as “unclassified employee benefits,” they are similar to Red Jacket and Victor at $9 per student and have the normal amount of debt.

So while Assemblywoman Annie Rabbitt (Conservative by party affiliation, not by action) is, according to her website, trying to save the $8.2 million in funding for the Lake Placid Olympic facility, my question for her is why a school district that is smaller than DeSales is spending $10,000,000 more annually than Red Jacket, has 21 staff members with salaries above $100,000 (as compared to three at Red Jacket, four at Midlakes, five at Bloomfield and 18 at Canandaigua) and why the lowest-paid bus drivers, janitors, aides, office assistants, and cafeteria workers are all making more than $52,000 per year? (Source: www.seethruny.net.)

And by the way, for people like Annie Rabbitt, the Winter Olympics have not been here in three decades — and the committee lets you know eight years in advance if they are coming back. That’s another $240 million we could have saved since 1982. Lease it; take the cash.

The Uncle Predicts

There is a very good chance that Mike, Tim and Tom are going to win re-election in the next village election.

One reason for that is their's were the only petitions turned in to Desiree.

Has Ralph lost hope?

Is he hibernating?

Has he recognized reality? (We just through this last one in as a joke)

So, barring a major write-in campaign, the election's outcome is pretty clear.

Can any of you spell U-N-C-L-E?