Tax-freeze rebate checks are still coming from NY. This article focuses on who's getting checks (Beacon already cleared) but also goes into the stressful impact on districts' finances, For one, they needed to come up with a Government Efficiency Plan. At the same time, there's that property tax cap, especially onerous this year as it's not 2% but 0.12 percent, which is close to zero.  Point is made that the checks are a disincentive for any municipality or district to go over the tax-cap limit. click here for full article

Jon Campbell 3:04 p.m. EST November 14, 2015
ALBANY - It’s a reliable and frequent scene at the state Capitol: School groups calling on New York to boost education funding.

It was no different last week, when the state Educational Conference Board — a coalition of organizations representing various school interests — gathered to call on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers to increase state school spending by $2.2 billion next year.  click here for full Poughkeepsie Journal article

Big City
By GINIA BELLAFANTE OCT. 23, 2015

In 1970, Jack Spatola, born Giacomo, a young immigrant from the small town of Paceco on the western tip of Sicily, who had come to the United States at the age of 14 with his parents to live in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, was called to service in the Vietnam War. His father was a shoemaker, his mother a seamstress, and neither wanted him to go; Mr. Spatola managed to avoid the draft on the grounds that he was the only person in his family who spoke English. Instead, he went to college — to Pace University — and got into education.​ click here for full article:  New York Times article 

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