New Rochelle businessman Bob Cohen, the state Senate candidate for the 37th district, was joined Thursday by Yonkers City Council Minority Leader John Larkin and Councilmen Mike Breen and Dennis Shepherd while he presented his plans to put more dollars back into the classroom. Cohen is running against Assemblyman George Latimer, D-Rye.
Cohen said the following reforms would reduce unnecessary administrative costs on school districts and lower property taxes:
· No Double Dip Administrators - school administrators, who are collecting a pension from one school district, must not be eligible for another.
· Eliminate preferred source vendors which would allow school districts to shop around for the best price.
· Allow schools the option of purchasing cooperatively with local and state governments. New York is one of only two states that do not allow cooperative contract use.
· Continue to support affordable higher education which includes returning loan interests rates to the 3% threshold.
· Revise New York’s school aid formula to finally deliver state aid for Westchester’s students, which will increase their class performance and ultimately improve Westchester’s graduation rates.
1 Comment
Mr. Cohen is showing his ignorance on education issues.
1. How can you restrict by law the ability of an administrator to make a living? No court will uphold this. Local municipalities can enact contract terms that allow for “non-compete” type language. If you enact a law for NYS then you will entice an employee to move out of state for their next job (i.e. P Fried of Mamaroneck). You do not need legislation for this protection.
2. Preferred source vendors are currently irrelevant. Competitive bidding is already in place, what we need is reform of WICKS that restricts single source vendors from bidding on cap-ex projects. Competent single source vendors can deliver projects at lower costs, estimates of savings range from a minimum of 13% to up to 40% on capital projects.
3. No one can argue that affordable education should exist, but a comprehensive employment based scenario that reduces interest expense based on job performance, employer participation would be a better long term solution.
4. School Aid formula is not actually the problem for most municipalities, the issue is how school aid is deployed for the most benefit including performance based metrics. Cities in Westchester are getting a disproportionately low allocation of aid, but putting more money into poorly managed systems is putting good money after bad.
These are complicated issues and sound bites will not fix the problem. If he really wants change, go after Triboro, WICKS, Tenure and 3020a to reduce the ever escalating costs of human capital in the system. Create consortiums between municipalities and incentives for school districts to combine back office, purchasing and reporting through the BOCES (or other centralized) structure. Create real mandate reform that makes sense and is properly funded.
These are the real issues facing NY education.