At the Board of Education meeting June 3, the school district announced that it would accept a bid of $733,000 for the planned student parking lot at North High School. I pointed out at the meeting that the voters had voted for a bond, including a parking lot priced at $651,000. What they were accepting was not what the voters had voted on.
This is a 13 percent increase over the original plan and does not include architectural fees. There is already a significant cost overrun without even starting the project. I asked where the additional funds would come from and, as usual, the response from the board members and the superintendent was stone-faced silence. In fact, they then combined this item with a number of others and approved the bloc without any discussion.
This is the height of fiscal irresponsibility and yet this is who we entrust with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars. As the public, we need to hold this board and administration accountable for frivolously spending money and flippantly using funds earmarked for education for cost overruns on a project with no educational value.
Robert Mendelson
Great Neck
