I ran into a good friend of mine in the parking lot of a wholesale outlet a few weeks ago and she gleefully announced to me that she was one of the people that campaigned against the school budget last year and that she was getting ready to do it again. She reminded me that she has never voted for a school budget, and outlined some of the reasons why she went out of her way to vigorously campaign against the last one. I realized that some of the reasons she stated were the very ones that were contained in widely circulated fliers that were placed on cars in parking lots and at the senior citizens' center around budget time last year. The fliers urged residents to vote down the budget for the following reasons:

The upper administrative salaries have increased so that the average salary is over $110,000 per year; Many retired administrators from other communities are hired as consultants in Westbury; all the construction and primary suppliers are non-Westbury companies; the administration has not participated in using the established sources and job fairs in making an effort to hire qualified minority teachers; we do not have enough classroom space in our schools yet we have a swimming pool that cost several million dollars; the Middle School technology rooms flood during the rain as that area has for the past five years; we pay in tax dollars over $52,000 in salary for children to learn to play chess; the board still can't seem to get its building/facilities policy use in order; if you want to have contact with our school board whom you have elected other than at the school board meeting, you must go through the superintendent. The school board and the administration realize that we are a sleeping community. Until we wake up they will continue to represent themselves first. These were headlines that were embellished with more detailed assertions.

Three days before the vote, another flier that targeted "illegal renters" was also circulated in the community. It charged that the Westbury School District was allowing non-resident students from Roosevelt and Hempstead to attend Westbury schools on Westbury taxpayers' backs and that school taxes go up yearly because of population increase due to increase of illegal registration of illegal renters in Westbury (sic).

The argument that is being advanced by organizers of this campaign seems to suggest that the community should continue to vote down the school budget because if it does not there is no telling how much more our taxes will increase, and that it was time for the voters to say no! This seems to have caught the ears of the legislators in Albany, because Governor Eliot Spitzer is now proposing that there should be caps on the year to year increase in school budgets, but whether this by itself will do, without accompanying increase in state aid to some districts remains to be seen.

Residents like my friend argue that the real problem has to do with wasteful spending by the school district administration and that the more money the state allocates, the more the waste escalates. School district officials maintain that state unfunded mandates, obligation to fulfill union negotiated arrangements, paying competitive salaries and addressing the district's special needs are the factors responsible for budget increase, and that had it not been for the administration's aggressive attitude in pursuing alternate sources of funding such as grants, the situation would have been worse.

Not so, says some residents, who vow to take a stand and are now focusing their attention on removing school's superintendent Dr. Constance Clark, whom they accuse of not doing enough to keep costs down, has not increased the district's test scores, and does not deserve the $238,000 per year that the district pays her. In fact, the sentiments against the superintendent in some quarters are so strong that one contributor on one of two websites that came into being a few weeks ago, summarized his/her comments with the words, "that woman has to go."

But the school board is not unaware of these charges, and from time to time attempts to explain away discrepancies, or provide justifications for decisions taken every time such matters are brought up in school board meetings. In addition, the board recently initiated the formation of four committees where community residents are invited to participate in detailed discussion/examination of the various issues as they relate to curriculum, buildings/ facilities, residency and school budget issues. Please do not take my word for it; anyone that is incensed about these charges should demand answers from the school board, by attending the bimonthly meetings at the high school's Little Theatre on the second and third Wednesdays.

Notwithstanding whatever plausible explanations the administration may provide, one should not casually dismiss peoples' concerns about increasing budget costs, and the accompanying high taxes. For example, in 1997 the operating budget for the district was $40,483,000, currently it is $91,529,449 - this after being voted down twice by the public. Technically speaking, the district is really operating on an austerity budget, (the only school district on Long Island with this dubious distinction) meaning that there are some services that the district may not provide when operating in this mode.

Now this is not the first time in recent memory that the district has been on austerity budget. A snap shot of the budget history for the past several years shows that the district experienced four consecutive years of austerity budgets from 1993 through 1996; finally broken in fiscal year '97-98, when North Hempstead Town Councilman Robert Troiano assumed the presidency of the school board. The only other times when the district operated on austerity were for fiscal year 2000-2001 and 2003-2004. While people may vote against budgets for whatsoever their reasons may be, it is important to remember that for every year a district remains on austerity, it takes three to five years for that district to recover from the deficit accrued (in wide ranging areas) while on austerity.

Some people are mindful of this fact and reluctant to vote against school budgets. However, such folks are conflicted by the Catch-22 syndrome of the perils of austerity versus the burden of high taxes and are beginning to realize that in instances where the school's administration's hands are tied, the state and the various levels of government must do more to bring relief to their overtaxed constituents.

Although I may not agree with the methodology and the motive of people whose ideology or philosophy clashes with mine, I would be the first on line to defend such individuals for their right to speak and organize; my activist roots steers me in this direction. Conversely, I do not believe in "throwing the baby out with the bath water," and I do not subscribe to the notion that we should tear the district down in order to build it up again.

Even though I have butted heads with Dr. Clark from time to time, I do not believe that she is not about the children of this district and I would never question her commitment to educating them. Is she overcompensated? I really do not know but what I do know, according to the Nassau Suffolk School Board Association (NSSBA), is that her annual salary of $238,850 per annum; not $305, 000 as stated in one of the websites aforementioned, puts her just above the 50 percentile range ($235,255) for salaries paid to superintendents in Nassau County for districts with enrollment of 4,000-7,999. Superintendents at the 90 percentile are paid $292,642,000 per annum. Incidentally, a recent New York Times article captioned "Demand for School Chiefs Pushes Salaries Up" talks about the difficulty school districts are facing in finding qualified people for this position.

In spite of all that is going on Dr. Clark is not without her supporters; she has been the recipient of a number of awards and commendations since coming to the district and currently serves on the New York State Commissioner's Education Advisory Panel. On her watch, the district has managed to maintain a strong fund balance - Moody's A-1 rating - and Mary Lagnado, assistant superintendent for business and management services, was last year granted the International Distinguished Professional Eagle award by the Association of Schools Business Officials. Other faculty members have received national and regional awards, including Coach Savalis Charles, who was honored by the Urban League as one of Long Island's most outstanding coaches.

Although not as resourceful as some of our surrounding counterparts, Westbury still manage to include in its ranks, two National Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence (the Middle School and Powell's Lane) and, in 2006 was cited by Standard & Poor's Report, as one of the 47 outperforming school districts in New York State. Some of our high school graduates have gone to colleges such as Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. Although our graduation rate to these universities may not be in the numbers that we would prefer them to be, it is important that this is mentioned because if we listen to the naysayer, one would believe that this has never happened, and it is important to assure our youngsters that such goals are achievable.

So although these are probably small incremental steps, I believe that we must celebrate them even as we work together to lengthen our strides.

I am inspired by the African proverb: "If you want to go quickly; go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Let's do it together.

Chester McGibbon