"Why are they so deceitful to their neighbors" exclaimed my elderly mother, as we discussed the results of the Levittown School Board's recent EXCEL (Expanding our Children's Education and Learning) bond referendum? "I'm not sure," I replied, "...possibly it's because they lack any ethics or integrity."

Mom was quiet for awhile and finally asked: "Do you remember Mrs. Schiffman?" Who could forget Max and Yetta Schiffman, our Bronx neighbors, who owned the Kosher butcher shop around the corner on 165th Street. Yetta spoke fluent English, with an Eastern European accent, and would often revert to Yiddish when annoyed. The arrival of the landlord's agents, Feldstein and Pollack, usually around suppertime, to collect their monthly rent was one of those occasions. Goniffs, as I recall, was one of the more colorful epitaphs Yetta uttered as she chased them away from her door with a stern warning to come back later. Maybe mom's correct, I thought, our school board members certainly act like a bunch of goniffs!

In mid October, mom, who is legally blind received an absentee ballot seeking approval of a $7,300,000 bond proposition, less any EXCEL Aid received from the State of New York, to finance a number of capital projects in the Levittown School District. Aside from a blank return address envelope, she never received any additional information explaining what the EXCEL bond program was about. As far as I can determine, neither did any of the other residents of her Eastover Gardens community. Senior citizens vote and I suspect our school board, fearing a negative vote, didn't want to make them aware of this referendum.

It wasn't until after the countywide general elections, on Nov. 6, that Levittown residents began receiving a districtwide mailing implying "...Levittown is authorized to receive as much as $7,300,000 through the EXCEL program..." Nothing could be further from the truth since Levittown's share of EXCEL funds is actually $2,563,680. EXCEL aid, combined with a slick 15-year bond issue of $4,736,320 (plus interest costs), is closer to reality. The Levittown School Board, so confident of success, already spent $380,000 of taxpayer funds, prior to the vote, for the costs of bond counsel (Nixon Peabody) and a bond attorney. Of course, they have been mum about the actual interest costs over the life of the bond issue. In fairness, it should be noted that Levittown, under its Building Aid Formula, will recoup most of the $4,736,320 and with a bit of luck its EXCEL aid.

Our intrepid school board also scheduled a public hearing, held on Nov.7, to discuss the upcoming Nov. 15 referendum. Three community members, myself included, showed up at this hearing which was barely publicized, for obvious reasons, since notice of it wasn't even mentioned in their useless district wide mailing. One of the things I learned at this "hearing" was the fact that if you didn't ask the right questions, you didn't get the right answers! When I later questioned our acid-tongued school board president about their oversight, she curtly informed me it was not her fault residents didn't show up for the public hearing. She's right! However, it might be helpful if she followed the lead of our neighbors in the Island Trees School District. Island Trees, ironically, also scheduled a similar bond referendum for $7,311,600 on the same date. Unlike Levittown, Island Trees residents, in early October, received a fully informative mailing detailing their referendum, which included EXCEL aid of $894,724. Interest costs are estimated to be nearly $3 million or an additional tax of $34 per year to Island Trees homeowners. Their mailing also publicized the dates of two public meetings to discuss their proposed projects. Each project and their estimated costs were also spelled out in this mailing. Sadly, Levittown shared none of this information with its overburdened taxpayers; whom, I suspect, will be saddled with interest costs in excess of $3,650,000 by the time this bond issue is retired. Signs announcing Levittown's referendum finally appeared, as if by magic, in front of our schools on Friday, Nov. 9.

Now that our school board has successfully deceived the Levittown community into believing we are receiving $7.3 million in "free money," let's see how generous they'll be to its residents, on May 20, 2008, when we go to the polls to vote on yet another bloated Levittown school budget. Fuggeddaboutit, as they say in Brooklyn, you ain't gonna see a dime's worth of tax relief while these goniffs are running the show!

James P. Ward