Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

Your weekly update on what others are thinking, doing, and planning
Send your comments or questions to me, and
I will include in next week's publication.

Flo Stahl, flostahl@snet.net
Avon Taxpayers Association
Subject: Avon Taxpayers Assoc. has Success in Avon
November 6, 2003

Hello Susan: Congratulations on your mayoral campaign. You have such spunk and always see the positive. I have some good news to report about Avon. The PTO and their political arm called ACE (Avon Citizens for Education) joined forces with the Democrats this year for an attempted coup on the Board of Finance. Two Republican incumbents were targeted for removal and replacement by two Democrats friendly to Board of Education budgets. At first there was a stealth campaign by email to PTO members targeting these people for removal. Thousands of dollars were then spent in signs all over town, in mailings and in computer-generated telephone calls...all targeting these incumbents for removal. I was informed of the secret email campaign and given a copy of the email. The Republican party was completely taken by surprise, but the Avon Taxpayers Assoc. swung into action. We exposed the email in a
Letter to the Editor in The Hartford Courant followed by a good story the next day. We made over 900 calls to our database and one of our members passed out a flyer to 180 households.   Had we not done this, these two incumbents probably would have lost. Not that the Board of Finance gave us everything we wanted...far from it, but we had to stop the PTO from putting their PUPPETS on and from winning a huge psychological victory. These two incumbents are now re-elected for four years so we have lots of capital with the Board of Finance. Also, there are some positive changes on the Board of Education...all in all should be a better environment for taxpayers in Avon. Flo Stahl
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Peter Arcidiacono, PJArcidiacono@aol.com
Tax Group: Common Sense
Subject: Three-year contract has frozen teachers� salaries for the first year
November 6, 2003

Are the arbitrators becoming more reasonable? It would be nice to eliminate the secrecy so that we would know the full story in the following article. Peter

ANSONIA � A new three-year contract has frozen teachers� salaries for the first year, according to terms of a pact that a state binding arbitration panel awarded last week.   The contract now goes to a vote by the Board of Aldermen this month. If approved, it will go into effect July 1, 2004, and run through July 1, 2007. The Board of Education and the Ansonia Federation of Teachers met with a three-member, state-appointed binding arbitration panel after months of unsuccessful negotiations. Talks broke down in July. The panel awarded a complete wage freeze for the first year of the pact. In the second year teachers at the top step will receive a 3 percent increase while all other salaries will rise by 1 percent, and in the third year teachers will receive a 2 percent increase.   "It is unfortunate that many outstanding and hardworking teachers will not see a pay increase next year, but that is in large part due to the unreasonable position taken by the federation," said Board of Education Chairman Beverly Tidmarsh. "The union needs to turn around and look at its leadership." Tidmarsh called the union "extremely unreasonable" this year. She did not provide details. Union President Dennis Gleason could not be reached Wednesday for comment. The union was scheduled to meet Wednesday afternoon. Tidmarsh said the city cannot get a better deal than the package offered and called it a "win-win" for the board and the city. "The award is certainly financially beneficial to the board and the city," she said. "If the aldermen reject the contract it goes to an appeal process to a second review panel," and the entire cost of the process would be borne by the city. The second review panel is made up of an arbitrator for the Board of Education, a city arbitrator and a neutral arbitrator. Tidmarsh said she realized during talks that "regardless of what we do as a board and even if we come to an agreement we should go ahead to arbitration." She said between the school board and the union there were 45 issues opened up during the negotiations process. In addition, the health insurance plan was redesigned in an effort to control rising costs. On July 1, teacher contributions will increase to 12 percent and will rise to 15 percent in the third year of the contract. Teachers will also have to contribute up to $25 for brand-name drugs.
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Gus Masi,   augiemm@direcway.com
Tax Group: Woodstock Taxpayers Association
Subject:    (1) Outsourcing - Jobs and Education (2) Boards of Education and Teachers
November 6, 2003

Just finished an article in the November Reader's Digest about corporations sending much of their backroom work to India, Rumania and China to take advantage of the high professional standards and the low cost labor.    We should devise a way to send our students to such places not only to get them better educated, but to do so at 1/3 the cost (including transportation). There is another issue that should be addressed while speaking about education: Members of the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachers should not be allowed to sit on school boards. There is a substantial conflict of interest.
We have one in Woodstock and another was just elected in Thompson. These individuals are dealing with teachers contracts and other important issues which cannot be judged impartially when they are union members.
Gus Masi
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Jim Orlowe,MREE526@cs.com
Tax Group: Quest, Stratford
Subject: (1) Applying for Nonprofit Taxpayer Group; (2) Senior Tax Relief Program

November 6, 2003
Dear Susan, We recently received a letter, after a year, accepting us as a 501(c)(3) from the IRS. If any organization wants to file or needs help, we are available. You once asked me to write it up but too long and complicated. We, as individual citizens, helped a group win a referendum and Stratford has a Mayor and council form of government after 82 years of bickering and political councils. We are now regrouping and Quest is looking into pensions and bond indebtedness in Stratford in time for the next budget. Also approaching the newly elected council persons and trying to get as many Quest Members on Town Committees as we can. We now have 418 members.

REQUEST: We would like you to alert any towns in your group that we need copies of their senior tax relief programs as we want to present a more realistic program in Stratford ASAP. You can reach me at 203-380-0135 if need be. If you send me your address I will send you our latest Newsletter which gives you an idea of what we are doing.   Jim Orlowe, President
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Bob Young, ryoung0@snet.net
Wethersfield Taxpayers Association
Subject: Democrat Party's Impact Upon Social Security
October 5, 2003

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the federal government to "put away," you may be interested in the following:

Q: Which party took Social Security from an independent fund and put it in the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic-controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which party put a tax on Social Security?
A: The Democratic party.

Q: Which party increased the tax on Social Security?
A: The Democratic Party with Al Gore casting the deciding vote.

Q: Which party decided to give money to immigrants?
A: That's right, immigrants moved into this country and at 65 got SSI Social Security. The Democratic Party gave that to them although they never paid a dime into it.

Then, after doing all this, the Democrats turn around and tell you the Republicans want to take your Social Security. And the worst part about it is, people believe it!    Pass it on please!    2004 Election Issue.   This must be an issue in "04".
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