Last Night's Board Meeting: Mr. Tampellini's New Low

Last night’s Board meeting was essentially a review of the 2014-15 School District Budget that was previously adopted by the Board by a 4-1 vote (with Mr. Tampellini voting “no”).  As projected since the start of budget season, the District is proposing a 1.96% tax levy increase, which is under the 2.04% tax cap.  In addition, as noted in the Budget Edition of the Commack Courier at page 2 (https://www.commack.k12.ny.us/budget14/budgetfacts.asp), because the District is coming in under the tax cap, homeowners that are STAR eligible will receive a rebate check from the state for a portion of school taxes paid after they pay their school tax bills.  Essentially, if you are STAR eligible, the extra money that you pay as a result of the tax levy increase will be returned to you at some point in the form of a rebate check.  That is the good news. 

On the other side of the coin, Mr. Tampellini took his baseless campaigning against the District’s fiscal practices to a new low last night.  The Board was asked to recognize receipt of a bill for approximately $4,000 from the District’s legal counsel for a legal memorandum on Mr. Tampellini’s accusations.  The Board disclosed that the memo, which for obvious reasons cannot be made public, advised that the District’s budgeting practices are, in fact, legal.  Not only did Mr. Tampellini have the gall to object to recognition of a bill for costs incurred as a result of his direct actions, but he actually called the situation “comical” and claimed that the Board was spending money that should be used for education.  So under Mr. Tampellini’s strange logic because the Board, instead of dismissing his claims of illegality (that, as an attorney, he should know full well are wrong), took them seriously and made sure that the District was in legal compliance, the Board – and not Mr. Tampellini by himself – was somehow wasting money that should be spent on education.  It is shocking that he can sit up there and make these statements with a straight face. 

Mr. Tampellini restated that he had called the Comptroller’s office to investigate (which interestingly enough, despite his and Mr. Fusco’s repeated calls, and the fact that the District’s financials are filed with the Comptroller every year, hasn’t happened yet).  Unfortunately, I asked the Board if there would be costs to the District if the Comptroller did come in to investigate and the answer was a clear yes.  Indeed, Mr. Hartman, who has related experience in his role as President of the Commack Public Library Board of Trustees, stated that some smaller districts that have been audited in the past have had to hire multiple full-time employees just to be able to deal with the demands of the auditors while also trying to continue operations.  The extent to which Mr. Tampellini will waste our District’s money on his own personal, baseless crusade and then seek to blame others apparently has no end.   

Short of a the Comptroller actually coming in and blessing the District’s practices, we already have the next best thing in the form of the recent Comptroller’s Audit Report for the New Rochelle School District (available here: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/schools/2014/newrochelle.pdf).  New Rochelle was already identified as district in Moderate Fiscal Stress (http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/fiscalmonitoring/pdf/schools/schools_stress_list.pdf) (Commack is not in any of the three levels of fiscal stress on that report by the way).  Other than cautioning New Rochelle about falling into further fiscal stress by using its reserve funds to bridge the gap for operational deficits, the Comptroller did not criticize New Rochelle’s budgeting practices.

 In fact, on page 5 of the report, it specifically states that:

 “We reviewed budget-to-actual results for fiscal years 2010-11 through 2012-13 and found that the District officials adopted budgets with realistic revenue and expenditure estimates.”

 The financials for those three years can be found here:  

2012-13 (http://www.nred.org/site_res_view_folder.aspx?id=5a464ef1-9ad5-4716-a299-1e10fb6b6ca0 at p. 19); 

2011-12 (http://www.newrochelletalk.com/files/BoE_2012-2013_Budget.pdf at p. 105); 

2010-11 (http://www.nred.org/www/nred/site/hosting/DEPARTMENTS_Files/Business_&_Administration_Files/2011%20Audit%20Report/final%20report%202011.pdf at p. 22).

 In reviewing New Rochelle’s budgeted and final expenditures for those years (the numbers that Mr. Tampellini and Mr. Fusco keep complaining about), you get the following:

                  Final Budgeted  Actual                                 
School Yr   Expenditures     Expenditures  Surplus         %

2010-11      $225,624,817    $218,342,544  $7,282,273   3.23%

2011-12      $230,872,398    $220,195,264  $10,677,134 4.62%

2012-13      $233,355.516    $227,625,348  $5,730,168   2.46%

Thus it is clear from this report that the Comptroller considers budgeted surpluses in the range of 2.46% to 4.62% to be “realistic… estimates.”  Since this is the range that Commack falls into, I’m not really sure what else there is to talk about or spend the District’s money on.

Actually, there is one more interesting thing to talk about.  Mr. Wunsch disclosed that Mr. Tampellini had sent him an email asking Mr. Wunsch if he would resign if the Comptroller came in and proved Mr. Tampellini right.   Last night, Mr. Wunsch turned that back around on Mr. Tampellini and asked him if he would resign if the Comptroller audited the District and, as with New Rochelle, found Commack to be in compliance.  Perhaps with his ego getting the better of him, Mr. Tampellini said “yes.”  He may want to go ahead and prepare that resignation letter ahead of time, just in case the Comptroller actually shows up before his term expires in 2016.

One last point on last night’s meeting, Mr. Fusco got up and asked the same question about the budget surplus, by Mr. Hartman’s estimation for the sixth time (I’d say it’s closer to twelve, but who’s counting?) and claimed that while the District might not be violating the law, its violating “the spirit of the law,” whatever that means.  When Dr. James asked Mr. Fusco if he had read the New Rochelle audit report, in kind of a mumble, he said that he wasn’t sure if he had read that one.  This reminds me of another reason not to vote for Dan Fusco.  A few Board meetings ago, Mr. Fusco was criticizing the Board for its handling of the Marion Carll Farm issue and Mr. Wunsch asked Mr. Fusco if he had voted in the special election about whether to sell the property to the Hamlet.  When Mr. Fusco said that he had and that he had voted “no,” Mr. Wunsch called him out, explaining that he had seen the voting records through the Freedom of Information Law, and that Mr. Fusco had not, in fact, voted in that election.  Mr. Fusco’s response was that he had voted no in his mind.  Yes, he voted no in his mind.  Again, having him as 1 of 5 trustees on the Board is a scary proposition indeed.

Moving on, although I really don’t read the comments to these posts, some people have told me that a few of the anonymous people (or person or Dan Fusco) that comment have claimed that rather than just simply caring about the education of our children and our community, somehow I’m writing these blogs out of “sour grapes” because I lost to Mr. Hartman last year.  Although that is a supremely silly argument, I do want to take the opportunity to say that this couldn’t be further from the truth.  And that is because, in the past year, I have had the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Hartman at almost every Board meeting and getting to know him better.  While I unfortunately didn’t get to do that in the rushed way that I ended up running last year, I can say now with certainty that Mr. Hartman conducts himself at all times with the best interests of our children and their education in his mind.  In contrast to people that seem to solely think of this School District as a fiscal matter, Mr. Hartman understands that, at the end of the day, it’s about providing every student in this District with the opportunity to get a great education.  This District is lucky to have him and I am proud to have him representing our interests. 

Finally, as I have said before, even though the proposed tax levy increase is low, it is very important that everyone get out and vote this year, not just for the budget, but also for the two Board Trustee positions.  I understand that with many working parents in the District, it is hard to make it to the polls, even by 9 p.m.  Attached to this post is the application to get an Absentee Ballot mailed to you, so that even if you can’t make it in person, your voice can still be heard.  If you are registered to vote in the District, and you have one of the reasons listed on the application (reason “B” is work), just fill out the application (it does not need to be notarized) and mail it to or drop it off at the Hubbs Administration Building.  The District will then send you an Absentee Ballot so that you can still participate.  Please make your voice heard, the future of our community depends on it.