Letter: Auburn school district spends taxpayer money foolishly
Ah, the tax bills have arrived from the Auburn Enlarged City School District, and I'm confident that most taxpayers are not too happy with their bills.
Why? Well, as usual, the district raises their taxes every year, no matter how much state aid they get — it's never enough.
Last year, they received a 22.2% increase in foundation aid or $8 million, which was on top of a $3.3 million increase the previous year. They actually received a total of $44.4 million last year. Wow!
And that's still not enough, for they whack us taxpayers for more every freaking year.
Our taxes keep increasing despite school enrollments decreasing every year, we close schools but the district always needs to hire more teachers, administrators or "deputy superintendents."
And speaking of "deputy superintendents." Jeffrey Pirozzolo retired as the superintendent but the Auburn school board, for some unknown reason, approved Pirozzolo to milk the system a little longer and stay on as another "deputy superintendent" at $89,552.82 (per FOIL).
This is in addition to a new superintendent plus seven other deputies, executive directors and assistant superintendents making close to $1.2 million.
Pirozzolo's new job description, per The Citizen, will be "focusing on capital projects and other needs." Capital projects? Does that mean they're planning to build another school, playground, offices, more artificial turf, etc.?
"And other needs?" I guess that means whatever Pirozzolo dreams up, right?
We have seven other highly paid deputies, etc., and not one of them can "focus on capital projects and other needs?" Really?
Somehow in the past, these "capital projects and other needs" were either handled by the superintendent or one his other minions without adding the unnecessary $89,552.82 to our tax bills.
I strongly recommend that the Auburn school board immediately — yes, immediately — reevaluate the need for Pirozzolo's unnecessary position and have one of the seven other deputies, etc., or the new superintendent, Misty L. Slavic, handle these dreamt-up tasks.
And the Auburn school board members who voted in favor of this unnecessary position, and especially Jeffery Pirozzolo, should hang their heads in shame for allowing him to play his Gordon Gekko "greed is good" card and let him continue to receive an outrageous salary and adding to his pension credits on the taxpayers' backs.
The Auburn school district really doesn't need to add another unnecessary $89,552.42 to our tax bills for a factious deputy position. Suggest readers call Eliezer Hernandez, president of the school board, at (315) 529-2260 if you agree with me.
Bill Balyszak lives in Fleming.
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