(Editor's note: This letter was sent to Michelle Schimel and to the Manhasset Press for publication.)

I am writing in response to the recent state budget that once again increased spending double the inflation rate, increased taxes and seemed to reward special interest groups while harming NY state taxpayers. All of this is done, as is usual with the NY state budget, behind closed doors. The state legislature seems to be clueless to the idea that they are driving more and more people out of NY State while ignoring the fact that the economy is slowing down.

What is worse is the inclusion of a special deal with the teacher's unions to limit the control of the granting of tenure by local school boards and administrations. It is almost impossible to fire a tenured teacher and now with the connivance of the state legislature and the teacher's unions the ability to fire teachers before they receive tenure is being whittled away. The direction that localities cannot utilize standard test scores is ridiculous. Standardized testing is one way to objectively determine if students are progressing.

It is pretty obvious that the needs of the teacher's unions come before the children, at least in the eyes of the state legislature.

John Frangos