Budget workshop sparks emotions in W.H.

As the West Hempstead community enters the final stretch of a challenging budget season, emotions are running high.

At the West Hempstead Board of Education’s third budget workshop on March 29, residents and board trustees expressed concerns and frustrations about the future of the district.

In need of dialogue

“We are bankrupting our community and we are bankrupting our children,” said six-year resident Byars Cole. “We cannot let this go on. The system is broken and we need to fix it.”

Cole’s comments were directed at board trustees, school administrators and faculty, and community residents — all of whom, he believes, are failing to address the real cost-driving issues: teacher salaries, pensions, health care and transportation. Some people are drawing six-figure retirement incomes, Cole said, and there are guaranteed returns on pensions plans. The board has yet to settle its contract with the teachers’ union, he noted, and the district is spending some 9 percent of its budget on busing.

“We don’t seem to be able to address those issues,” Cole recently told the Herald, “year after year after year. And so we never seem to make any progress. … I feel like we’re arguing over the sheets of the Titanic.”

It’s time, said the father of three, for the community and the school district to begin discussing those subjects, and bringing in state legislators and others to help West Hempstead deal with the issues. Often, people say pensions programs and the like are Albany issues, Cole said, “But that doesn’t mean we have to accept it.”

And if the school board fails to address the issues, it is powerless to effect change, he added.

Cole’s comments hit a nerve with both meeting attendees and at least one board trustee. Cynthia Di Miceli, who was elected to her seat last May, spoke out in agreement and support of Cole’s message, particularly about state-mandated busing requirements.

“This might be political suicide,” she said before addressing the transportation issue. “It will put people in an uproar, but as a board, it’s something we have to look at.”