Well the voters have voted to approve the Manhasset School District. The revote was technically legal, but morally reprehensible. The board made no really meaningful change from the rejected budget. An unusually large number of persons came out to register the week before the revote. These are people who never bothered to even register before this revote. At least three "fliers" were sent to the voters, at the voters' expense, by the school board after the original vote. The revote was 1,435 to 1,127.

The vote was only 56 percent in favor and 44 percent against the budget.

It has been said many times by those in favor of spending more and more money on the school budget that the reason that the value of our homes has increased so much relative to other areas is because of the good schools. That is not the main reason (in fact it is a minor reason); the main reason is the rather excellent train service provided by the LIRR and by the convenient bus service on Northern Boulevard. I even know of one family with children who moved here because they wanted to live in St. Mary's Parish area in order to get a reduced tuition there and not because of the public school system.

Assuming that there are 2,630 students in the system. Assume that on an average there are two children per family in school. Assume that each family includes two adults who vote. The last time I checked every child had a mother and every child, except one in the last 2003 years had an earthly father. If all of these legal voters had voted "Yes" that would have been 2,630 YES votes, but there were only 1,435 YES votes. In other words, if the parents were so concerned about the budget passing there would have been 2,630 YES votes. Assuming the above to be true, only 55 percent of the parents of children in the school voted in favor of the budget. That is assuming that no one without children voted in favor of the budget and, of course, some did.

The board of education has got to stop wasting our money and treating the taxpayers as a "cash cow" to be milked at will. Let them study how Herricks School District can educate a child for less than two-thirds as much as Manhasset and get the same results. Let them study how Chaminade can have classes with as many as 40 students and still have comparable results.

Eugene W. Garges Jr.