Category: Whitehall

Another Whitehall store sits empty while municipal officials spend extravagantly on unnecessary projects.

At a time when Whitehall is literally flooded, no new businesses are coming into the area, and school enrollment is dropping faster that Newton’s apple, what does the school board in its “wisdom” decide to do?

If you guessed, approve a special election on June 29th to vote on spending $625,000 in reserve funds to completely reconstruct the school’s auditorium, you clearly know how the Whitehall school board operates. School officials trot out their standard lines that it will have no impact on taxes when in fact the effect has already been felt because we have already been taxed for this money.

Sadly, this is why Whitehall is at the tipping point as an area in rapid decline. Instead of attracting new business, focusing on lowering the tax base and stabilizing the population, Whitehall is doing everything in its power to destroy the tax base and drive out those who would consider investing in the community.

Additionally when municipalities across the country are working on shedding costs and tightening their fiscal belts, the town and village of Whitehall are considering acquiring the former armory that the state of New York is trying to give away. (That’s correct, the state of NY doesn’t want it but Whitehall may acquire it.) It has been reported that a new roof for the armory alone may cost $400,000.

Every year when passing through Whitehall it seems that things continue to slide downhill. This is in spite of the fact that Whitehall has many natural advantages; its location on a major thoroughfare between Vermont and New York, a train stop three and half hours from Manhattan, summer tourism, and even the local scenery. Somehow, Whitehall is never able to fully capitalize on any of these great assets.

Why then is Whitehall stuck in a permanent state of demise? This is my opinion.

For many years, Whitehall has suffered from very poor local leadership. This applies across the spectrum from town and village officials to members of the school board. The first course of action seems to be always to raise taxes and very little is done to save money or cut taxes, market the community or reach out to business owners. When a developer approached Whitehall last year about building a new supermarket and restaurant, the proposal went nowhere.

What should Whitehall do? What has been shown to work in other states and municipalities?

Cut taxes everywhere, try to get new business to come into the area, use the area’s assets to invite people in, not drive them out. Be encouraging and helpful to those who invest in the community. Whitehall is now at the tipping point, continuing to raise taxes and take on public projects that are unnecessary and costly.

Whitehall’s demise will continue and accelerate on its current path. It needs to change quickly and soon. Why are we spending money on capital improvements at the school which is projected to lose students for the foreseeable future? Why is the expensive undertaking of acquiring the armory necessary when people can’t afford their taxes currently?

Sadly the answer is poor leadership that has no vision. Leadership that is dooming the Whitehall area with tax and spend policies that are too extravagant for its taxpayers to afford any longer.

The school district election was on Tuesday.

Current incumbents George Armstrong and Virginia Rivette ran unopposed for reelection.

Mr. Armstrong received 209 votes and Ms. Rivette received 192 votes.

While I provided both candidates with questionnaires, I never received Ms. Rivette’s questionnaire back.

The budget passed with 175 votes “for” and 58 “opposed”.

I congratulate both candidates on their victories and service to the community. I would especially like to thank Mr. Armstrong for taking the time to answer my questionnaire and to inform you about his positions.

The Whitehall School District will have an election Tuesday, May 17th between 12:00 noon and 9:00 p.m. in the LGI room of the Junior/Senior High School on Buckley Road:

1.) To adopt next years budget.
2.) To elect two (2) members of the school board.

I have posted here the yearly budget comparison mailed out by the school district.

As of this moment I have not received the candidate questionnaire from Ms. Virginia Rivette that I submitted to her. When and if I receive her answers, I will post them.

Please remember to vote!

This year there are two vacancies on the Board of Education and two candidates running for these seats. The Huletts Current submitted the following questions to each candidate running for the school board. I explained to each candidate that I would run their answers as they submitted them on the Huletts Current. The questions are entirely my own and hopefully you will get a better sense of who the candidate is and what their positions are after reading their responses.

Today I present Mr. George Armstrong’s answers to my questions.

Could you please tell us about yourself and why you are running for the school board?

I am a retired GE manager who now operates with my wife’s help a green house and vegetable business. I have a life long love for education and a belief that our young people can be better educated if we become involved and show the way.

The Whitehall school district’s enrollment has been falling (and is predicted to continue to decline). When do you expect that falling enrollment will translate into lower taxes for all?

Probably the best we can hope for is a slight increase in the budget and a small increase in taxes. Sharp increases in health insurance and pension obligations are driving budget increases. Soon we will not have enough fund balance to offset increases in health costs and pension obligations unless (the) state increases school aid or eliminates mandates.

Whitehall and Granville had a long history of playing each other in sports. However, Whitehall is now in the “D” conference for smaller schools while Granville is in the higher “B” conference. Would you like to see this rivalry begin again and if so, what will you do, if elected to the school board, to bring residents and students into Whitehall?

No. I would not like this rivalry to begin again. Granville school will soon have twice our population. We can barely dress enough players to be competitive most years.

Do you believe that increased spending per pupil translates into a better education?

No. I do not believe that increased spending automatically translates in a better education. Involved parents, good teachers and a caring community are the key to a better education. Money is very important but must be used wisely.

If elected, will you advocate for or offer a resolution that any yearly budget surpluses be returned to the taxpayers in the form of lower taxes the following year? If not, why not?

No school district should over tax, however; following state guidelines fund balances should be maintained for a year like this one. Without some of our fund balance being applied this year we would be looking at 10% + tax increase despite our cut backs. We have never exceeded the legal limit, 4% on fund balance.

Governor Cuomo has recognized that lowering state spending is essential to a healthy state. Do you feel a responsibility, if elected, to cut spending and taxes on the local level to have a healthy and prosperous community?

You can talk about lowering spending and taxes all you want, but with health cost and pension obligations sky rocketing, mandates increasing and business fleeing N.Y., its not going to happen. We need some structural changes that are hard to get in Albany. Governor Cuomo seems to have the right ideas but entrenched interests have killed many a good idea.

The vote to elect two members to the school board and to approve or reject the proposed school budget will be held on May 17, 2011.

Two candidates are running for the two open seats on the school board this year. Mr. George Armstrong and Ms. Virginia Rivette are both running for reelection.

I’ve mailed both Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Rivette candidate questionnaires to explore their views and give the readers of the Huletts Current insight into their positions.

As soon as I hear back from Mr. Armstrong and Ms. Rivette, I will post their answers here.

Sadly, in a year when enrollment is declining, the Whitehall school board has again decided to raise spending and property taxes.

The Post Star has the story here.

The state aid amounts to local school districts were released on Wednesday. These are the figures for the Whitehall School District.

For the 2010-2011 year, the district received $8,119,139. For 2011-2012, the district is scheduled to receive $7,361,054. This is a $758,085 cut which translates into a 9.34% reduction in state spending.

To see the entire year by year comparison for Whitehall, look here (bottom right of page).

The problem for the taxpayers of the school district is that historically no matter what the state does, the district increases property taxes. This is a good year to reduce spending, in so far as enrollment is falling and the population is declining. Once the school board recognizes that the decline of the town and the school district are related to their tax and spend policies, we might be on our way to an improved situation. At least our state leaders are recognizing this fact and are cutting spending.

The Post Star has a must read article on Huletts’ Billie Borden.

This is an excellent piece! And of course, kudos to Billie for her courage, character and intelligence.

I went through the last 6 years worth of data that is publically available and put together this table which compares the student enrollment in the Whitehall School district to the number of staff positions. As you can see, enrollment has been falling (and is projected to continue to fall) while teacher and staff positions have either risen or stayed approximately the same.

	04-05	05-06	06-07	07-08	08-09	09-10	% Change
# Students	885	860	858	845	815	779	-11.98%
# Teachers	83	85	79	86	87	86	+ 3.61%
# Professionals	6	10	10	9	10	9	+50.00%
# Paraprofessionals	38	46	39	45	46	37	-2.63%

I think these numbers are important for a number of reasons:

1.) The school board during the last 5 years lobbied for and spent millions of dollars expanding the physical plant of the school while enrollment was falling. It should be apparent that this was a very poor use of resources (as residents of Huletts argued). You may recall that the teachers supported this expansion. Doing simple projections on the expected enrollment over the next 10 years should result in a discussion about mothballing certain buildings going forward. It is absolutely reasonable to look into consolidating both the elementary school and the high school into one building at this time. At one time the buildings which comprise the school district housed approximately 1200 students. If current projections hold, we will reach approximately half that number sometime during the next 10 years.

2.) The teacher’s are very vocal about losing jobs and while this should be a concern to all of us, the ability of the taxpayer to fund rising salaries, benefits and other expansive ideas of the education establishment (all in a time of documented enrollment loses) has been reached at this point. Doing away with a number of positions based on falling enrollment is quite reasonable and should be expected based on these numbers.

The Whitehall Times has an eye-opening article on the problems Whitehall has made for itself by the school board’s out of control tax and spend policies.

Finally, the plummeting enrollment of the Whitehall school district can’t be hidden anymore. Readers of the Huletts Current have known about this for some time now. What is the school’s board’s response? A proposed property tax increase of 13% at this time, which taxpayers of the district (including Huletts Landing) will be expected to pay.

Here’s an idea for the Whitehall School board. The plummeting enrollment (which all of New York is experiencing) is directly related to policies that always assume that the taxpayer can continue to match the spending increases that our school board regularly enacts. Look around Whitehall, the town is in serious decline and has been for some time.

The plummeting enrollment is expected to get worse over the next ten years. The discussion needs to include mothballing buildings, cutting spending drastically and lowering property taxes.

As enrollment falls and the cost per student rises, the Whitehall School board is proposing to spend $500,000 on building improvements, the Whitehall Times reports.

The fact that is not really presented in the article is that, if undertaken, the project has already been paid for by the taxpayers.

This is how the school board does it:

The budget is consistently over estimated and excess taxes received are deposited in “reserve accounts” after approval by the voters. The voters have never been asked, as long as I can remember, if these excess funds should be returned to the taxpayers and the next year’s budget never seems to reflect the overcharges from the prior year. Projects are then proposed where the state reimburses a percentage of the amount expended and claims are made that it will not effect the budget. That’s because we’ve already been overtaxed. When the state reimburses where does the money go? It goes back into the reserve funds.

Governor Patterson made note last year of the large amounts of reserve funds many school districts, like Whitehall, are holding.

In the last couple of years, we’ve added a large addition to the school, added tennis courts to the school, refurbished the pool, refurbished and added a new roof to the gymnasium and now we are proposing to refurbish the auditorium. All the while, enrollment is plummeting and costs per student are rising because of falling enrollment. When you see the school board holding special elections in the middle of winter, you can surmise that their budget excesses where better than they had forecast and they either want voter approval to spend the excess or put in into reserve accounts.

Keep an eye on the propositions that the school board puts forth in May. Excess money that they want approval to put into reserve accounts comes from our checkbooks that they have overcharged.