Next year's 1.3 percent rise in Social Security checks for most recipients will be completely wiped out by the recent increase in school taxes. Franklin Square's elementary school budget rose by 6.73 percent, five times the inflation rate. The Sewanhaka Central High School and the Franklin Square budgets together now exceed $100 million. That's big-time spending!

Franklin Square voters approved school budgets with a $1.38 tax rate increase. But when their tax bill arrived, they found that the increase was nearly three times that amount.

School administrators blame the school tax increase on the adjusted base proportions while Nassau County Assessor Charles O'Shea says it is due to a computer glitch. Meanwhile, it's the homeowner who gets hit in the pocketbook and the incompetent officials responsible for this fiasco hold on to their jobs.

Our elected officials praise STAR, the School Tax Relief Program, but STAR fails to control skyrocketing school taxes and could turn out to be a financial nightmare for New York State, already burdened by the lowest bond rating and the highest debt load of any state in the nation.

Under STAR, school districts can continue their spending spree since the state will make up any reduced tax payment by residents. STAR simply shifts the costs of school taxes from the local homeowner to state taxpayers.

It is estimated that the STAR plan will boost the school tax rate by one-third placing an increased tax burden on commercial and industrial property. STAR is expected to spur even higher spending by schools since senior citizens' opposition to school budgets has been mollified by the property tax reductions.

STAR masks the real problem: public school budgets are soaring and the number of teachers and administrators is growing far faster than the number of students.

The Franklin Square school district hired 19 new teachers this fall while Sewanhaka hired 14. An article in The New York Times questions the value of reducing class size. School uniforms may improve learning as much as smaller class size.

Franklin Square teachers are among the highest paid in the nation and their salaries, including automatic step increases and payment for education credits, have been escalating at a rate far greater than inflation, yet student test scores are no better than in some upstate school districts where teachers earn half as much. In July 1999, the starting pay in Franklin Square for teachers with a master's degree will be $47,034.

With their latest pay boost, Franklin Square's teachers will have a top base salary of $83,236 next year for less than 10 months of work plus fringe benefits that are way out of line with the private sector. This means that a first-grade teacher in Franklin Square can earn as much as a median salaried full-time professor at Hofstra University.