THE BLAME ALBANY GAME IS GROWING OLD

Tonight’s combined meeting of the Education and Intergovernmental Relations Committees was well timed, falling as close as it does to “Groundhog Day”. Like the Bill Murray movie of the same name where every day just repeats itself, we were treated to two hours of the same old same old. How a roomful of appointed and elected officials living in the midst of the worst economy in memory in a state that is all but broke could spend well over an hour making the same tired arguments is beyond me. Once again the old song was being sung: the only answer to projected education funding shortfalls is the argument we’ve made for decades - that Yonkers is shortchanged under the State formula.

When I pointed out that there was no reasonable expectation that an argument that had failed for decades would suddenly prevail in the next two months nobody had an answer. When I asked the Superintendent what “Plan B” might be, he offered only the annual dire predictions of massive layoffs.

Its time for tough decision making. Albany is not, realistically, going to save Yonkers from pain anymore than it can or will spare any other municipality. We live in a State that grew its budget year in and year out based on a tax base 20 to 25% dependent on Wall Street. Given that fact in these times, the party is over and difficult decision making, creativity and shared pain are the order of the day.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but relying on tired blame games and unrealistic hopes is no longer an option. All stakeholders must seriously reexamine their priorities and rethink how we are operating our schools (and our city) if we are going to make it safely through this storm.