Shelter Island Reporter Letters to the Editor: March 18

School Budget

To the Editor:

The School District is proposing a budget of $12.4 million for next year. In April, 2020, the New York State Comptroller’s Office did an audit of the district’s budget at that time. The audit had four “Key Findings” and four “Key Recommendations.”

One finding was that the district had a $1.7 million fund balance from 2015 to 2020. This was more than four times the amount allowable by law. The recommendation was to reduce the fund balance to the allowable limit and use the excess to reduce taxes.

The superintendent decided to transfer this excess money to other “reserves” as a solution. This ruse will be transparent to the comptroller’s office if not to the voters. Ironically, the state’s audit also indicated that at least two of the reserve funds (unemployment and benefits) to which the superintendent transferred the excess money were already over-funded and should be reduced.

As a former superintendent, I’m aware that these reserve funds, as well as the reserve fund for “Teacher Retirement,” are sometimes used to hide monies in the budget that are really not needed or justified at the time.

Another finding was that the district had 95 employees to service 213 students. This is an incredible ratio. If we take a $12 million budget and divide it by 213 students, that would come to a cost of nearly $54,000 per pupil. Do the district’s test scores and ranking reflect this kind of expenditure per pupil?

Finally, this year, when so many people are suffering financially, having a budget that has no tax increase would be wonderful, and this can be easily achieved by following only some of the comptroller’s recommendations and using excess tax monies to reduce the budget.

BOB FREDERICKS, Shelter Island

A profile of Shelter Island

To the Editor:

The Comprehensive Plan Committee has released to the public a profile of Shelter Island. It is an impressive document, comprehensive, complete and well written. Our expensive consultants have certainly done their homework. It does however have some deficiencies.

With a 10-man police force and a school district that has 95 employees, the town is very likely accruing substantial financial obligations to pay for the pension and health care costs for its retirees.

The plan’s profile does not mention these obligations, nor the extent to which they have been funded. This is understandable because our elected officials who are, in the main, proponents of this grandiose plan, are apparently oblivious to this problem, preferring instead to grapple with regulating yard sales and home rentals and dealing with the public health emergency caused by visitors picnicking at Bootleggers Alley.

The profile cites the problem of nitrogenous chemicals leaching into the aquifer and describes the efforts to install sophisticated systems to mitigate the minuscule amounts of nitrogenous chemicals contained in the bodily waste we all contribute daily to our septic systems. It fails to note, nor attempt to quantify, the huge amount of nitrogen contained in the fertilizers we import by the truckload and indiscriminately apply to our golf courses, ball fields, and croquet courts.

Hopefully, the committee will consider these potential problems as it promulgates a plan to establish a paradise here on Shelter Island. Otherwise our grandchildren might find it a tad expensive to live here and they might not want to drink the water.

DAVID OLSEN, Shelter Island