Can someone in our school administration confirm or refute the facts in Mr. Russo's recent letter as to how much school custodians ($77,000) and maintenance people ($87,000) cost us in pay and benefits? If this is accurate then why indeed are we not contracting out these services? This is why our school budget is going up another 8 percent.

I have lived in Port for 30 years and know our school taxes have gone up much, much more than all our other property taxes combined and now make up most of our property tax bill. Every so often Newsday shows test results for all the schools on Long Island. There are always many other school districts similar to Port in number of students, poverty levels, etc., which spend much less than we and yet get the same or better test results. While some city schools might need more money, that is not the case with our suburban schools. Replacing our nurse teachers with registered nurses, as every other Nassau school district has done, would have saved us $300,000 with no educational penalty. But our school board caved in to the pressure and then passes the burden on to us taxpayers.

I think the school tax situation is completely out of control. It seems the school district wants to force seniors who have spent many years here to leave Port. This is wrong. I plan to vote against the budget this year and hope they will then give us a lower increase than 8 percent.

Anthony L. Cava

(Ed.'s Note: At the April 15 BoE meeting, the district gave a handout of P.W. School's Salary/Benefit Cost Analysis. We reprinted this information on page 22. And in response to Mr. Cava's question, we can confirm that the information in Mr. Russo's letter is correct.)