Once again, the Pine Bush School District is in the process of creating a school budget for 2010-11. They are also in the process of getting ready for contract negotiations with the teachers union. The district has a shortfall this year of over $5 million. The state is broke and schools will have major cutbacks which will either have to be paid by the community or the district will really have to tighten their belts.

I say the district should tighten their belts. We should be sending our children to school to receive a quality education so that they can be productive in either going out into the work force or getting a good college education. It is the meat and potatoes — not the gravy — that makes the meal. It is time to get back to basics. I was shocked to hear that some teachers like Karen Gormley, who makes around $60,000 a year, feels that the administration should bring to the community an 18 percent budget increase. When you have a total family income of over $200,000 you can easily say that an increase of 18 percent is acceptable.

Teachers are saying that it would only add $70 a month to the community's tax bill. We are talking about an increase of $840 a year. Are they out of their minds? It is evident that the teachers have no clue what the homeowners/tax payers are going through in this difficult economy. Many of our teachers don't even live in our district. Many people have lost their jobs or have seen no pay raises for two or three years. Many have had to take pay cuts in order to keep their jobs. People are losing their homes to foreclosure. Others are finding it very difficult to put food on the table or be able to pay for fuel to keep their cars on the road or heat their homes. Senior citizens will not be receiving a cost of living for the next two years. You would think that these teachers who are so educated would have compassion for the families in our community. They should be willing to take a pay freeze for the next one or two years to show their good will to the community and to the children that they teach. After all, they always say "It's for the children." They are walking around with a loaf of bread under each arm. Many of them are getting every year an increase/raise of around 3 percent, called a step increment. This is over and above the 3 percent that they received as a pay raise in their contract. All the other union members whose contract is up for negotiations should also accept a pay freeze. This is only common sense.

You have people paying $1,500/3,000 month for health insurance. The senior citizens are paying $1,156.80 a year which is taken out of their Social Security check. Our teachers don't pay too much more towards their health insurance than what our seniors pay. The cost of health insurance for our teachers is about $18,000 a year for a family plan. The school district is paying into the teachers' retirement fund from our school taxes and being that their plan has lost money due to the downturn of the stock market, the tax payers will have to make up for their losses.

How many people have lost thousands of dollars in their 401k or in the stock market and have had to put off retirement? Who makes up our losses? Many community members are only receiving Social Security to live on. At the last teachers' contract, these stars threatened to strike in order to get what they wanted. I say if they want to strike, let them — and for every day they are out they will have to pay two days of pay in fines. Our school board and superintendent should not cave in to their demands like they did in the previous contract.

The interim superintendent Bill Basset and the board gave them everything including the kitchen sink. Our new budget should not exceed more than 2.9 percent. Even with that kind of raise it will put some community members over the edge. It was good to hear that the President of the Pine Bush School Board, in a response to Ms. Gromley's accusations, admitted that the board had made some mistakes in their spending habits by caving in to the demands of the teachers' union pertaining to the teachers' lucrative pay raises, by not making them pay more for their health insurance and agreeing to a more lucrative retirement. I hope that this revelation will help the school board to stand up to the teachers' union and look out more for the tax payers' interests. We are in very hard times and our school board and superintendant should keep that in mind.