Vote 'no' to an 'intolerable tax increase'

The following letter was sent to residents in Pound Ridge. It is published here at the writers request.

To the Editor:

Pound Ridge has been my home for 45 years and I am a former member of the Bedford Central School Board. Having watched the June 7 board meeting on cable TV, I feel our present board is not acting responsibly in light of the resounding budget defeat of May 16.

Its response is a $65.8 million budget proposal, which would result in an intolerable tax increase.

This budget proposal incorporates an increase of $4,925,739 in new taxes. That's 9.34 percent over last year. Compare this with a CP1 of 2.67 percent and a forecasted enrollment increase of 3.95 percent.

The devil is always in a myriad of details. But the bulk of the increase appears to come from having negotiated salary increases with tenured personnel before the budget was presented, thus presenting taxpayers with a fait accompli. It is not clear, though, that these increases are cast in as much stone as the board contends.

Here's one detail: Three years ago district voters approved a $17 million construction bond issue, which included funds for window replace-. ment at the Pound Ridge elementary School. The current budget proposal asks us for another $160,000 to do this coming year what we already paid for three years ago.

Nobody even blushes.

The option facing voters is to reject this budget on Tuesday, June 20. A "no" vote will force the board to finance the school district within statutory limits of what is now referred to as "contingency" budget. This will force some discipline into what has been ostensibly an undisciplined process.

SJ. Sindeband Pound Ridge