Under pressure from all sides to reign in out-of-control school spending, New Rochelle Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak appears to be losing his mind. This week Organisciak not only insulted New York Governor Andrew Cuomo but attacked New Jersey Governor Chris Christie with a school yard taunt, mocking the heavy set chief executive of the Garden State as “Krispy Kreme”.
Journal News: New Rochelle superintendent rebukes Cuomo
Organisciak, whose base salary for the 2010/2011 school year is $263,250, wasn’t done. He referred to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who also has spoken out against superintendent salaries, as “Krispy Kreme” and said Cuomo couldn’t be “King Cuomo the Second.”
Organisciak feels he and his fellow administrators are being made “scapegoats” because superintendent salaries are a “drop in the bucket” so cutting his salary would not make a difference. He claims he would support reducing superintendent salaries if that would solve the state budget crisis but since it will not he doesn’t. Of course, by this standard there is no point in taking any action to reduce spending in New Rochelle since no local reductions in spending will by themselves close the State budget gap especially since about 70% of funding for the district comes from local property taxes.
In a remarks that typifies Organisciak’s bizzaro-world mentality, he defends his massive pay package at a time of fiscal austerity by comparing his job interview process with New Rochelle schools to Cuomo’s statewide political campaign. See if you can make sense of this quote:
“For him [Cuomo] to knock us on salaries—it took him $35 million, $40 million to get elected? I didn’t have $35 million to get this job”.
Organisciak has a long history of making inane comments and this one ranks among the Top 10.
How inane? As teachers are being fired, taxpayers are struggling to keep their homes and parents are dealing with reduced services and larger class sizes, Organisciak sees himself as the victim. For Organisciak, anyone who would question whether he and his fellow administrators should be getting $200,000 plus salaries with 4.5% pay increases while he is firing teachers, increasing class sizes and raising property taxes is guilty of scapegoating him.
Apparently the concept of shared sacrifice is lost on him.