“What planet are you from? Have you no decency? Would your parents approve? Would they be proud of you?” These are questions local developer Carl Paladino asked of Buffalo Teachers Federation President Phil Rumore in a letter that went out to all local media.
“The part about his parents really got to him,” Carl said. “But I wasn’t saying anything bad about his parents. Quite the opposite, I was saying something bad about him.”
The flack stems from Paladino’s outrage over Rumore’s court action to have multiple-carrier insurance reinstated to Buffalo teachers. Paladino chides Rumore for wanting what he says is an insurance plan, with the same benefits, that will cost the system $15 million more per year.
The single-carrier negotiated term contract was devised by Superintendent James Williams and the Buffalo Educators Support Team. Williams celebrated it as a great financial victory for the system that would pay off in savings and more money that could then be spent in the system in order to directly affect the quality of education for the students.
Paladino argues that Rumore’s action adds to the $25,500/per year it costs taxpayers to educate a single student. “The tuition at Nichols is $15,000 per year,” Paladino wrote. “We could send all of [the students] to great private schools and set aside $10,000 a year in a college fund for each. You blame everybody and everything, except yourself.”
Paladino also accuses Rumore of stacking the deck with like-minded school board members, in an election that is voted on by “less than 5 percent of the electorate.” He goes on to say, “Thank God for the control board. Without it, you and the collectively incompetent School Board would have driven the last sole out of the City of Buffalo.”
Paladino tells Rumore to take a vacation to “revaluate what you are doing.” In Paladino’s scathing letter, it’s the reference to his parents that Rumore especially took umbrage at. See his response, according to Brian Meyer.