Another Example for the Bureaucratic Spending Addicted Hall of Shame
This town seems to aim at keeping the working man homeowner crippled with tax payments. There lacks humility in helping the common taxpayer from their cup. Extravagant spending, expensive government compensation packages and with complete disregard for those who man the oars of the slave ship is the whip of their reign.
"Are property taxes increasing? Yes. But by choice of legislative bodies that decide to spend more, like bridges to nowhere, a fancy library that removes a large tax generating property from tax rolls, fancy county government buildings, subsidies for recycling and downtown businesses, extra welfare benefits and so on.
The ICSD is especially prone to increasing expenditures on things that are nice but not necessary and beyond a rational level of affordability and sustainability. For example, ICSD average per pupil expenditure (PPE) is about 50 percent higher than national average and 20 percent higher than comparable districts in Upstate New York. Our PPE has increased from about $9,700 to $16,000 in only 10 years. The Alternative Community School has class sizes of merely 12, and the district as a whole averages 18 (with most elementary classes also having a teacher’s aide), far better than the national average. That may be nice, but it is costly and a choice, not a mandate. And the superintendent just spent thousands of dollars giving about 1,200 T-shirts to employees to promote the new "Vision" she and her overlarge administrative staff have concocted."
Mr. Lambert astutely explains, "No, the problem is not property taxes but the total tax burden, which includes sales and income. And high taxes are the result of high spending. High spending is in large degree a function of choice by elected legislators at all levels of government."
Quoted from the Ithica Journal , Allen Lambert / Guest Column