Re: I Need Some Advice or Help- New Yorkers!!!

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 3/11/2003 10:33:20 PM Eastern Standard Time,

jrob12999@... writes:

<<

I need some help i just got something in the mail today about a Town

Hall Meeting on Saturday March 22, 2003.

This Town Hall Meeting will have alot of our Federal,State and Local

representatives. Some of the people that will be in attendence will

be: NY State Governor E. Pataki - Invited

United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - Invited

United States Congresswoman Sue

NY State Senator Leibell

NY State Assemblyman Willis s

NY Sate Assemblywoman Sandy Galef

Putnam County Executive J. Bondi

Commissioner Piazza, Jr.

The purpose of this Town Hall Meeting is to discuss State and Federal

Budget Proposals, and i would like some input and help on some

questions that i could ask and i will try and do my best and post

some answers for the list when it is over.

Thanks in Advance to anybody and everyone that will help.

>>

Jon and Judy,

Where's the meeting? It is critical that you try and attend. Pataki is

trying to make some budget changes that will devastate some very important

programs for New Yorkers with children with special needs and not.

- He's trying to eliminate Universal Pre-K. he had previously committed to

provide Pre-K to all 4 year olds in the state by 2004. This would be

particularly devastating to NYC. There are currently 60,000 children in NY

attending Pre-K and 43,000 are in NYC.

- He's trying to cut back on fees paid to private special ed programs at the

same time he's demanding that all their teachers be certified. Currently

these private programs can hire teachers at 2/3 the rate while they continue

to study for their Masters and certification. Once they get it they usually

leave the private programs for the better paying public school jobs. By

demanding certification from day one no one will be able to afford to work

for these non-profit agencies.

- He's wants special-ed preschool programs to collect directly from insurance

companies and demand copays from parents. Then NYS will fund 80% of the gap

between what's collected and what it costs. This may seem like a smart way

to pay for things, but the overhead will kill some programs. My doctor has 6

people working on insurance and billing. If every school has to hire these

folks, that'll be that much less going to our kids.

- He wants to have parents pay for EI services, on a sliding scale. It might

make sense, because I know a lot of other states do it, but the scale he's

proposing is absurd. I heard that he's expecting a family of 4 making

$26,000 to shell out $1,000. For some families that will constitute a choice

between providing therapies to their you child or FOOD!

These were just some of the points discussed at a parents advisory board

meeting at Liam's school. There are probably plenty more issues, but these

are the ones that could close a lot of programs. So please go and urge

everyone you know to go too!

Kathy, Liam's mom(almost 5)