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Sachem Legislative Committee Minutes

December 14, 2006

Minutes of 12-14-06 Sachem Legislative Committee Meeting:

Attendees : Sal Nicosia, Chmn, Debbie Slinkosky, School Bd. Liaison, Sal Tripi, Dianne Hettrich, Sandra Jones, Leo Rutledge.

Items discussed:

1. Role of PTA in Sachem Legislative Committee

2. Invite Patricia Eddington, State Assembly Person, 3rd A.D., February Meeting to discuss: Regional Cost Factor and its impact on State Aid to School Districts. (suggested by Dianne Hettrich)

3. Lobby for increase in Special Education State Aid Funding.

4. Put Minutes of Legislative Committee Meeting on Website

5. Bus Trip to Albany (Students, PTA Units, Teachers, Interested Parents, Board Members, Administrators)

6. Review State of State Address by Governor Elect Eliot Spitzer in January Joint Legislative Session and acquire copy of address and carefully peruse Educational Aspects of the Address.

7. Acquire update on CFE group re financial equity of State Aid to Local School Districts.

8. Explore No Child Left Behind Legislation to increase Federal Aid to Local School Districts.

The Sachem Legislative Committee re-read the Mission Statement and discussed its contents. As chairperson, my chief concerns are to empower our community to impress upon them that it is essential that they vote in the School Election in May in large and significant numbers. If we continue to turnout the number of voters of the past two years, even though we are getting a larger (22%) percentage than in previous school budget elections, we will not have much impact on our State Senate and Assembly Representatives. Teachers turnout for Elections are in the high 80's percentage wise. They LISTEN to their demands!

On January 11th, 2007, the Middle Country School Board is hosting a meeting of a group of School Districts in Suffolk County. Patchogue-Medford, Sachem, Miller Place, SWR, Longwood, and Smithtown attended the last meeting. They are attempting to form a large coalition of surrounding school districts and lobby our state representatives for reasonable increases in the un-funded mandate category. I am aware that this is a difficult amount to ascertain in our budget. Some of the smaller districts seem to be able to extrapolate the amount they spend in this area.

Submitted by
Sal Nicosia
Chairperson 12-15-06

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