A crowd approaching 200 braved a biting cold to march from Public Square to the State Office Building today in protest of Governor Cuomo's proposed budget allocations for schools.
In an area with a relative low per capita income, I don't know how many people are worried about whether NYSUT members continue to pay zero for health benefits, but since many people are related to a teacher there is probably some sympathy for them.
They were chanting "tax the millionaires", as if taxing the eight people in the county with that income will make much difference...You'd think educated people would be a little better with math.
Education Cuts Prompt Protest In Watertown WWNY TV 7 - News, Weather and Sports for Watertown, NY Local News
25 comments:
How do you question o% contributions to health insurance? Teachers deserve the best. Don't like paying for it, then move somewhere else.
I ask you this good sir?Do you think the people in New York City that are living high on the hog that this tax effects gives two shits about us up here?thats just why we should agree with it.How many is it going to make leave thats area bull shit.Hold me down tickle me pink statement if something is to there benefit down there and its going to hurt us they just say oh well these numbers will grw when the shit realy hits the fan the people who organize that are there we saw how real it got today when they threatend peacefull protesters with the law I was finaly able to deliver some post cards to Mrs.Patti times are tough we seen your boys lurkin threw the crowd.We see new faces then we say there getting the big picture everyone is one pink slip away from loosing tere job its real so please try not to dumb it down...
How many of you marching slugs stood silently as my child was bullied & beaten daily in the warehousing known as public schools? Are among you the few who told me you knew what was going on & wished now that you had done something, anything, to help? The fire that is my anger has never banked. Don't come to me for sympathy or support. "tax the millionaires", what a bunch of sh*t when I struggle to make it week-to-week & a Watertown school teacher owns a welfare-rental property across the street.
I apologize to you, Mr. Graham, for my harshness. It is impossible for me to see these people as anything other than what they are: Parasites.
Juston,
Are you the same guy TV 7 interviewed a year or two ago, who moved out of NY then came back because educational services were better?
Juston, Use some of these next time:
-> . <-
Anonymous: Why do teachers deserve the best? What about the taxpayers? Don't they deserve the best value for their tax dollar?
We spend somewhere north of $14,500 per student every year in the Watertown school district (where the median income is 32K).
We can't afford to pay them at that rate any longer. If teachers don't like it, they can (like the rest of us) change jobs and do something else.
By reading Your post, I see You Juston, recieved a fine education. I doubt very much, a 2.7% decrease in the budget to schools, will effect future outcomes including Yours. Teachers are no better than anyone else and will have to suck it up along with the rest of Us.
IT IS ABOUT THE CHILDREN AND PROVIDING A FIRSTRATE EDUCATION:
Mayor, you’re the one using fuzzy Math, because you keep talking about 7 Up-State Millionaires which is just politics pure and simple. The Millionaires Tax, State wide could generate added millions to off-set the need to cut education in Up-State New York. In any case, you talk about teacher’s salaries, which are modest and behind public sector jobs by an average of 25 percent nationwide. You also attempt to lump teachers’ salaries and benefits together as if they were also total salary. You like to say teachers on average make 100,000 dollars a year. A blatant falsehood you repeat on ‘Hotline’ all the time. You’re a shill for the rich! It’s an education issue, not an Up-State versus Down State issue. Go. Cuomo has to decide for Education, because the Democratic Parties main source of campaign support is generated from Union contributions. I think he’ll do everything he can to limit cuts and to keep Republicans and Tea Party members from lying through their teeth about what’s really at stake in education in NNY. We fight to keep necessary programs in place. We seek to make our children’s education better so they can compete in the world of tomorrow. Obviously without your help Mayor Graham, we'll make sure NNY children get the education they deserve in our schools.
MCM
The educational system in NYS is in need of financial reality.
Teachers and others that dedicate their lives to students are valued . But there are some who are less than what they should be .
Education is part of the answer for economic recovery but the principle engine of economic recovery is the sustainability of the private sector and the employment and goods and services IT produces , distributes and sells , generating tax revenue for the continued operation of the public sector ,
Without a STRONG private sector the public sector is compromised and that is where we are right now. Look at the various metrics in the Economy
We are OUT of Balance and need to re- generate a durable goods production sector of the economy SOON . Durable goods production has historically lead the way pout of recessions/ depression . If we fail, we probably face second tier status as a nation in a generation
BTW spent 3+ decades working in education , always paid approx a GRAND /yr or more of the cost for health insurance AND KNEW IT WAS A GOOD DEAL.
The public sector agencies in the Aid to Localities section of the NYS budget especially local eduction have historically been given a number of "soft landings" budgetarily and have NOT endured the level of cuts that those agencies in the State OPerations side of the NYS Budget have sustained over time .
This year alone the State OPs endured a 10 % cut whereas education statewide is projected to be cut 2.7 % by the Executive Budget
Time for a reality check
Wow your $14,000 came from $12,000 real fast you people make me laugh it's almost time for you to hit the high sea,the river that is with your big boats & your summer homes please try running your oh no we can't afford this bullsit we ca afford our hunting preserve or we can afford t sit & scratch lottery or go out to eat five days week .Oh ya the same guy Anon6:53Am I still believe that to.Not for long though with people like you happy to see it get slashed to pieces I have been in there since day one.I had a brain injury & tend to get lazy on grammer,spelling you know what im talking about.I would have to say you are one of those guys that thinks your something yet hides behind a nobody Anon...Tag your helping solve the problems on here though....bawaaaaaaaa
Juston....While I have a kid who needs all the help he can so he doesn't get left behind... I don't expect another person to foot the bill in NYC. Hell I feel bad now that the bill is split between everyone in Watertown.... Because it is. I don't pay all the cost in my taxs for my kid to go to school. You don't. The Mayor doesn't have kids and he pays. Some of these so called rich people don't have kids.
I don't see it as a problem to take a cut in these hard times....under 3%....Big deal.
Playing these class wars is total bull....The ad that's running right now on all the radio shows...Makes me sick.
$40,000 was spent on a sign in front of a Watertown school. Ask the teachers what it costs to have these ads on the air. Have to say it's more then 3% of a cut.
Juston:
Even two years ago it was $13,422
See The New York State School Report Card Fiscal Accountability Supplement for Watertown City School District for the 2008-09 school year here: http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/reportcard/2011/supplemental/222000010000.pdf
Hey Ray,there actualy loosing there jobs are you listening to the show they are starting to call in.The 1.4billion that was cut from the budget last year was cuts.People like the mayor & his insurance buddie along with guys called the gun nut who wants more cuts dumb it down.1.5 billion this year.I know how much you love the mayor please do your own research.About the sighn I could not stand Warren Fargo that was wrong you would think that the mayor would have had one of those by now.You should get your facts straight I do pay taxes inside your city Ray.Hey one Question Ray what are you doing to help fix the problems?stting on your computer running your trapp on the radio My phone is ringing with thank yous I have been giving back for some time now you don't sway me Ray get up make a difference or simmer down.Don't give me that smack that you care about your kids whats the extra circuler activitie do you atend school functions do you volunteer at sam keep what are you doing that i'm not.I know your sitting on your ass.
It's the same people trying to attack you Juston,it's the same ones who complain about how bad things are yet do nothing to get in there,help out fix the issues.Keep going your doing a great job,if Ray realy did care he would realize who got us in this mess.Millionairs from Wall Street the boys club in Congress who are all millionairs.Ray did your kid cause this mess.This is real!! so when they can't afford to buy a Jeep or even a beer due to the fact there layed off we will see how you respond then.
A guy who sells cars is telling us how much he loves Wall Street & what they have done to our state,way to go Ray....
For the past two decades, education spending has risen at twice the rate of inflation. Teacher salaries and benefits have risen at a faster rate than any other area of the economy, especially here in NNY. Staffs have increased. Class sizes have decreased. Media is in bed with the teacher union. All manner of schemes have been used to convince taxpayers that someone else is paying the bill, from "the state will pay" to STAR rebates from Mars or where ever they come from. Schools have pools, busses for every six kids, teacher aides for most all classes, artificial turf fields, in school TV studios, weather radars on the roof, all kinds of fun stuff. Teachers retire at 55 and work a schedule that equals half what real people work and take three months off a year. In response the taxpayer gets a drumbeat of bend over stories from a staff of inhalers from Mr Johnson's WDT and Scotty Atkinson's WWNY. Both have family on the payroll of the schools. No one will be laid off from a school. This is all about the annual lying campaign we are subjected to by the same ol' same ol'. It is very predictable. Did you expect something different this year?
Considering ones pay and benefits together is not "new math" Mikey. Try to keep up. Teachers are making $100k a year when considering the entire package. Again, it is you who is lying. Do a Google search and you will confirm. Have you been able to get that teaching job you are searching for? We are all rooting for you. I'm sure you'd bring all your personal integrity into the classroom with you. What an asset. Just think, next year it could be you on public square, railing against cuts that never happened.
Down State has always paid 2:00 in taxes to Albany, NY for every tax dollar they get back:
A popular misconception in 'Up-State NY' RAY is that Up-State ever footed the bill to run UP-State NY. The Mayor will agree, because he has already agreed with me, on the air about this issue of where Albany, NY sends our tax dollars. For every 2.00tax dollars NYC sends to Albanian they get one tax dollar back. Up-State, NY, has always been supported by down-state tax money. Ask the Mayor again Ray, can you people ever get it right?
MCM
First Juston and friends. You know nada about me. I'm glad to say that I don't go to all the Basketball games during the week. I worked all day from sun up to sundown and I don't have anyomre time to give. I have paid taxs in some form another from 16 years old till now. I have never been near to being a Millon dollar in the bank person. People who are rich sure pay their share and employee several people in this state. How you going to feel when several people in NYS are told they don't have a job because their boss is closing up shop and moving to Florida? Why isn't Ms. Russell being zeroed out in this whole deal? She made some of the same votes to stop the new taxs. I don't say in any way to go after her... But why do you pick and choose? Maybe you need to read into the whole deal a little more? Maybe your beloved teachers need to pull the belt a little tight. I have already done so for years. I have to think you don't make millons in your work place. Do you?
Now I never posted that I'm for the teachers getting the shaft. I'm for everyone staying in their job and maybe taking the deal on the table. Keeping their summer homes... Their nice cars.... Their way of life. I sure want to keep mine. I'm not in the hate the teachers room.... I'm in the I love my job snd want to keep it. If some people want to keep theirs....maybe a cut isn't so bad?
Think about it this way Gun Nut adleast you will have a good bunker to go to if the smack hits the fan like your predicting.I agree all of the extras where not needed where you advocating then when it was going on.I was as a matter a fact.I was the one who did the study on the turf fields,thought wow they are laying off teachers yet they are building these high tech fields.Just get yourself in there help fix the waste don't sit & bitch about it.MMM Im glad that I can be a part of this.I ask that you keep the pressure on the Unions to do more help out with this,people it's collective group effort.Things need to change our communication is horrible Gun Nut get your ass in there & help change your nick name to Education Nut.
If it is about the kids why are teachers still getting raises. Why are they still paying zero for their health insurance? MCM teachers public school teachers make much more than teachers in the State system. Plus state teachers pay close to $4000/year for their family plan. Time for everyone to give back even the teachers.
As usual, you addressed none of the issues that matter Mikey. I really don't care if NYC wastes more money than we do. Waste is waste. What a confused individual. And all that education. Proof that it means nothing.
Anon 9:19
Everytime you put one of thiese silly anonymous, shadow comments on anything and everything I right you make me look better to everyone. Thanks for the help!
MCM
Mikey, simply stay on topic. We will all do better if the debate is focused.
Word has it, Juston, that you are welcome in the bunker if that time ever arrives. No hats. Low ceiling. Dogs run off with them anyway.
MMM, you have eleven degrees and you say people criticize everything you "right"? Could that be a sign you're moving to the right after all? I know he's a fact of convenience for you but,,praise God.
Go to that Outdoor Show. Good thing. Yous can wear your hat.
First off, if you're going to use the term "upstate", please spell it correctly (not Up-State)...that just makes you look ignorant; even though I fully agree with you and your positions: NYC, LI & the Hudson Valley is without a doubt the economic engine of New York State! Deal with that fact people! Put aside your petty beefs with downstate and accept the FACT that we recieve more money than we put in. Now on to teachers: your average teacher in our area does enjoy a higher quality of life than the rest of us. I am not jealous, Lord knows I would not want to, nor could I deal with the idiotic kids of today. But that aside, teachers are being very disingenuous if they think they have it tough. I own my own business and employee three people. I work over fourteen hours a day, six days a week, 360 days per year. I never get the summers off and haven't been on a vacation with my family in almost five years. I would tell most teachers that I represent the majority, not the minority. Most people who live here work their tails off to pay the bills and save to send their kids to college! ENOUGH OF YOUR BITCHING!
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