Rocky Point School District Wants Astroturf

Tonight I went to the Rocky Point Board of Education meeting on the proposal to, among other things, use about $1 million to install astroturf on the football field. I'll be honest, I don't know if it's really needed, if, as was stated tonight, it's safer for the kids. What I do know, however, is that the dialogue about this was incomplete at best.

Here's what we kept hearing, we have the money, it's in the capital projects reserve fund, and it's not going to cost us anything. Well, I'm confused, didn't that money come from the taxpayer? Or did it miraculously appear out of nowhere? And when we need to replenish the fund, isn't it again going to come from the taxpayer?

The president of the parent-teacher association asked Dr. Ring how long it had taken to raise that money, to which Dr. Ring answered five years. OK, the proposal now is to use $900,00 of the reserve fund for the track, a little over $1 million for the astroturf on the field, and $300,000 for renovation to class labs. This comes to about $2.2 million. Divide this by 5 years and it comes to about $440,000.

Actually what was put in the reserve fund over the five eyars was more than that since some of it has already been used for other projects. But we'll ignore that. This means that if the district had not put in the $440,000 in this fund last year, it could have stayed under the cap without threatening to cut kindergarden.

I don't know if it's a good idea or a bad idea to spend this money on the turf, but to say it doesn't cost anything because we have it is ludicrous! We have it because tax money put it there and tax money will be needed to replenish it!