"Stop the School" in Pennsbury?

From the BCCT.

‘Throw the bums out!’ It’s time for a taxpayer revolution

Two Democrats and two Republicans face re-election as Pennsbury school board directors this year. All four of them need to be thrown out of office.

If making that statement ruffles feathers in my own party, so be it. Sometimes one just has to say enough is enough. School taxes are roughly 80 percent of property taxes for most Pennsbury residents, and nine elected school board officials have been raising our property taxes above the rate of inflation year after year.

With the current economic crisis causing serious hardship and financial distress for many people, the idea that the school board could even consider raising our property taxes more than 4.1 percent this year is obscene. Yet on Feb. 12, the board voted to approve having that right. Then on Feb. 19, the board voted on a tentative teacher union contract that adds millions of dollars to labor costs next year. Not one penny of this multimillion-dollar additional expenditure on teachers’ salaries and benefits will improve one student’s academic performance.

Let’s remember that Pennsbury’s teachers are already extremely well compensated. Their taxpayer-funded salaries are among the very highest in the state, and their taxpayer-funded benefits are out of this world. All this tentative agreement does is say that teachers who earn a $98,000 salary must wait one year before getting another pay hike. Most other teachers will still get big pay raises and all teachers will get their incredibly low 10 percent contributions to health care premiums locked in for another year.

Are the people expected to pay higher property taxes to give away such freebies? That would be us — the people who are losing their jobs and homes in a recession. And that’s why the four incumbents need to be thrown out of office. Much like those unethical opportunists in the state Legislature who pander to the teachers union to get elected, our local school officials are doing the same thing.

We read daily reports of job losses, as private employers are cutting labor costs in an effort to survive this recession. But our school board knows it can never go out of business because, whenever there is a revenue shortfall, they just shake down taxpayers.

To add millions of dollars to labor costs shows how out of touch the school board has become. They don’t want to make any decisions that might upset the teachers union. So instead, they spin a pay “freeze” — in name only — proposal onto the public.

Well, it is time for a taxpayer revolution. If you haven’t yet marked your calendar for May 19, please do it now. That’s when school board elections occur and they are typically low voter turnout affairs. Low voter turnout allows union-backed candidates a chance to get elected, to inflict even more pain upon taxpayers. So I put it to readers that voting on May 19 is as important as voting last November.

The Pennsbury school board should have voted against raising property taxes more than 4.1 percent this year. And they should have voted down this union-pandering, tax-hiking, multimillion-dollar increase in labor costs agreement with the teachers union. Then, the board should have voted to negotiate more realistic concessions.

If teachers don’t want to make realistic contract concessions, then we need to start firing them. They should be thankful for being protected with a job for life in today’s economy. Because how many families are dealing with a job loss? How many seniors are dealing with the possibility of losing their home?

Enough is enough. The incumbents on the Pennsbury school board have failed us. Make a note on May 19 to throw them out of office. Taxpayers hit hard by this recession are at breaking point. The American people have always had a revolutionary spirit, and the rallying cry “Throw the bums out!” has swept across many prior elections. It now needs to sweep across the Pennsbury School District in 2009.