New Rochelle School & Library Budget Passes; Jerome Smith Ousted as Merchant, Orellana Push Incumbent Aside

Written By: Robert Cox

NRSchoolLibraryVote2010.jpg

School Budget passes 2,076 to 1,694

School Board

*Valerie Orellana – 2,290
*Lianne Merchant – 2,069
Jerome Smith – 1,648

*winner

Library Budget passes 2,208 to 1,587

Library Bond passes 2,146 to 1,572

Library Trustee Walters 2,215

The big news here for Talk of the Sound is that the two incumbents who we vigorously opposed are now both on their way out. Cindy Babcock-Deutsch (10 years) opted not to run at all and Jerome Smith (15 years) lost after our series of exposes on his failure to maintain a primary residence in New ROchelle, making him ineligible to serve on the board.

There is some question about the “yes” votes coming form Ward; the actually total may be 173 “yes” votes not 73 but the budget passed regardless. The Board of Ed will ratify the results tomorrow night.

7 thoughts on “New Rochelle School & Library Budget Passes; Jerome Smith Ousted as Merchant, Orellana Push Incumbent Aside”

  1. Budget Passing = Me forced to sell home.
    Looks like after over 50+ years we will have to sell our New Rochelle home thanks to the passing of this budget. Property taxes are set to shoot up AT LEAST %14 to carry these outlandish budgets. We can no longer afford paying the already ridiculously high taxes. So long New Rochelle. I was hoping another generation could be raised in the same house the last three generations have called home.

  2. Low Turnout – Table
    The problem here is apathy. I ran a quick spreadsheet and check out these percentages of people who actually voted.


    Tot. Reg. Yes  Yes
    Absentee
    Ballot
    Yes No No
    Absentee
    Ballot
    No Percentage
    Voting
    Barnard 2,882 290 3 293 145 1 146 15%
    Columbus 2,860 44 16 60 83 7 90 5%
    Davis 4,282 274 5 279 261 3 264 13%
    Jefferson 3,505 98 35 133 126 9 135 8%
    MLK Comm. Ctr. 3,452 132 3 135 82 0 82 6%
    NRHS 3,805 322 2 324 259 8 267 16%
    Trinity 3,771 119 6 125 95 2 97 6%
    ALMS 2,373 238 4 242 124 6 130 16%
    Webster 3,027 186 3 189 120 5 125 10%
    IEY 4,213 92 16 108 65 3 68 4%
    Holy Name 3,133 108 0 108 165 0 165 9%
    Ward 2,027 73 2 75 121 4 125 10%
    570 Fifth Ave. 223 5 0 5 0 0 0 2%
    39,553 1981 95 2076 1646 48 1694 10%

    1. Low Voter Turnout
      The data does indicate a low percentage of registered voters went to the polls yesterday. It does not support the conclusion that low turnout is a function of voter apathy.

      To say that low voter turnout is due to apathy is to concede the claim made by the district that voters are generally satisfied with the way the district is run.

      I believe a compelling argument could be made that the root cause of many of the problems with public education have to do with the absurd insistance that schools operate on an agrarian calendar developed two centuries ago for a world we have not lived in for a very, very long time. This system has remained not because it serves the interest of “consumers” (parents and children) but because it serves the entrenched interests including the teachers union, providers of summer camps, the tourism industry and so on.

      A way to undertand this is to look at the New York Stock Exchange which since its inception in the 18th century traded stocks in 1/8ths. It was not until the year 2000 that the NYSE began to convert to quoting stocks in decimals. The original reason for quoting stocks in 1/8th of a dollar increments was because the United States did not initially have a central bank or central currency and relied on state banks, private banks and foreign currency, in particular, the Spanish Dollar which was a non-decimalized currency.

      Wikipedia: In the U.S., the “bit” as a designation for money dates from the colonial period, when a common unit of currency was the Spanish milled dollar. As a way of making change, these dollars were cut into eight pie-slice shaped pieces which were called “bits”. Each eighth-dollar bit was then worth 12.5 cents, “two bits” was a quarter of a dollar (25 cents), “four bits” was a half-dollar (50 cents) and “six bits” was 75 cents. Because there was no one-bit coin, a dime (10 ¢) was sometimes called a short bit and 15c a long bit.

      No one has been chopping up Spanish coins to make “change” in quite a long time so why did the NYSE continue to maintain a pricing system based on this colonial method of payment? Looking back on the last 10 years, we see reduced bid-ask spreads (quoted, effective, and realized), reductions in the quoted size, and lower return volatility — all of which benefit the investor at the expense of the market makers. The minimum “spread” dropped from 12.5 cents (1/8th of a dollar) to 1 cent, a boon to the investor and a series dent in trader profits. The NYSE is owned by the market makers so it is easy to see why they would have resisted a change to a market system which allowed them to line their pockets. In fact, it took an act of Congress to compel the NYSE and other exchanges to decimalize pricing.

      There are many reasons why entrenched interests would want to retain the agrarian calendar but one major reason is hiding from taxpayers the FULLY ANNUALIZED salaries of school district employees. Most public school employees are 10 month employees. In New York most work a 180 day school year whereas everyone else works about a 245 day year (depending on holidays) or 42% more time. Most public school employees work 6 hour days whereas everyone else works 8 hours or 33% more time.

      If you annualize the salary of a teacher making $100,000 a year and adjust for a full work day that looking like this:

      $100,000 x 1.33 x 1.42 = $188,000

      About one-third of the district’s 10-month employees make over $100,000.

      Traditionally, to compensate for low pay, teachers were given the highest possible job security on the planet (tenure after just 3 years), they were given generous benefits and lots of other hidden perks like time-off DURING the day to “prepare” for class (since tenured teachers have been teaching the same material for years, few actually need time to “prepare”). Any extra work they do like coaching or moderating a student group or chaperoning a student event entitled them to ADDITIONAL pay; same with working over the summer.

      Just as stock brokers did not want investors to understand just how valuable trading in 1/8ths was to them (have you seen the latest ScottTrade commercials with the greedy broker losing clients to his online competitor?), unions in our area do not want taxpayers to know that a very large number of their members are making an annualized salary in excess of $200,000 a year with a golden benefits package and titanium-strength job security.

      On top of all this you have issues like the one you have raised here — lower voter turnout. Does anyone doubt that turnout would be MUCH, MUCH higher if school elections were held in November along with all the other major elections?

      Because we are on agrarian calendar, the school year begins in “the fall” so a budget for the year has to be prepared in advance of the fall start date. As a result school votes are held in May and if the budget fails they hold another vote in June. As a business runs on a 12 month July-June calendar so terms for BoE seats start and stop based on this calendar which means elections are held before June (i.e. May). The State, County and City run on a regular calendar year basis so that the school budget year is always out of sync with the state and local government.

      As a result we vote on a budget the month before tax certioris are due in June and several months before the new property assessments are announced by the City — which is why the projected tax rate is never accurate. Much mischief flows from this but basically the district can say whatever they want about the budget and taxes and then turn around and blame the City for the tax levee as if they had nothing to do with it.

      It was a bit traumatic for the NYSE to change from fractions to decimals (it took 2 year to plan and another 14 months to bring about) and I am sure it would be traumatic to change from an agrarian calendar to a regular calendar year where school starts in January but the transition would be a one-time event and parents, children and tax payers would benefit tremendously.

      With such a change made, school elections could beheld in November and, if necessary, second votes held in December. Such a change would certainly result in a far larger turnout for school elections. Given that the school district is getting 70% of local taxes and the BoE members wield far greater power over far more lives than a member of the City Council, why shouldn’t school elections be brought in line with elections for Mayor, City Council, County Reps, State Reps, Congress and the Presidency?

      There is no way in hell that the New York State Assembly would allow this to happen so it will take an Act of Congress to compel states to make such a change. Until then the status quo will continue to result in bankrupting our state governments, milking the cow dry, delivering abysmal results and allowing our students to fall further and further behind children in other developed and developing nations.

      I do not see lower voter turnout as a sign of voter apathy but a logical reaction to a rigged game run by the few at the expense of the many. Change the game and you will change the results — convert the entire country from an antiquated, agrarian calendar and a host of new opportunities arise to bring some sanity to a public school system that is destroying our country from within.

  3. “The big news here for Talk
    “The big news here for Talk of the Sound is that the two incumbents who we vigorously opposed are now both on their way out. Cindy Babcock-Deutsch (10 years) opted not to run at all and Jerome Smith (15 years) lost after our series of exposes on his failure to maintain a primary residence in New ROchelle, making him ineligible to serve on the board.”

    When you use the phrase “after our series of exposes [sic] on his failure to maintain a primary residence in New ROchelle [sic],…”, are you implying a cause-and-effect relationship or merely a chronological ordering of events?

    1. The statement is clear and…
      …the facts speak for themselves but I will spell the, out for you as the premise to your question appears to be an attempt to cast doubt on the ability of Talk of the Sound to impact a local election.

      There were two “official” candidates this year – Orellana and Smith. Merchant ran as the outsider. Anyone who saw the lawn signs understands the difference. Anyone who attended the LWV forum understands the difference. Anyone who regularly attends BoE meetings knows the difference.

      Now, here’s the math…

      The school budget, the library budget, the library bond, the library trustee and Orellana all got about 2,100-2,200 votes. Smith got 1,648 votes.

      Where did those 500 votes go?

      Speaking to a number of community leaders last night who would have otherwise supported any reliable “yes” vote on the Board of Education (i.e. an incumbent like Smith), they were aware of our stories raising questions about whether Smith had a primary residence in New Rochelle and concluded that he should not be re-elected to a fourth term.

      Talk of the Sound drove Cindy Babcock-Deutsch out of the race and helped defeat Jerome Smith. If these people are not going to term-limit themselves then voters need to do it for them. The idea that people are serving on the Board of Education in New Rochelle for decades is absurd on its face. The practice needs to end and if the BoE will not change its own by-laws then voters can bring about change on their own.

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