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GREENBURGH, N.Y. – Citing a need for the fair and unbiased distribution of financial aid, a community advisory council has suggested the town adopt a single policy for its scholarship applications.
The Greenburgh Citizens Advisory Commission has outlined a process for children and adults to apply for financial help for community activities, like town summer camps and nutritional programs.
Last month the commission advised the board to consider adopting the policy into law, creating what they called a standard of consistency that would ensure fairness when the town is doling out scholarship funds.
“What permeates everything that this commission is trying to do is fairness,” Chairman Alan Hochberg told the board at a recent work session. “If you live in one community or another community it’s the same standard and it’s enforced the same way.”
The advisory group, created as part of Greenburgh's Budget Oversight Commission, said their proposal wouldn’t significantly change the process for applicants. What it would do is create a local law so “there is accountability and every commissioner would have to know they are accountable for approving something,” Hochberg said.
If passed by the board, the law would apply to any town programs where scholarships are granted – whether it be in the parks and recreation department, library and even the nature center.
Right now, there is no consistency, the report said, as each department reviews applications by its own standards.
“We do not want to limit the departments but there should be structures in place to ensure policy is being administered fairly to all individuals in the town,” said William Bland, co-chair of the parks and recreation subcommittee.
The current application process is expected to remain in place through the remainder of 2012, with any changes taking effect during the 2013 scholarship application process.
Comments (4)
Scholarship???? THEFT OF SERVICES- plain and simple, has been going on at TDYCC for decades.
Dear Mom of 2;
In addition to the TDYCC and the Parks Department camps; there is also one run by the Nature Center and one by the Police Department. One might also acknowledge that the intern program is also a summer camp but one with fully subsidized color war. I think Edgemont may also sponsor some sort of summer programs. And don't forget that there are at least two private sector camps domiciled in Greenburgh. Finally, short of the complete, formal camp "syllabus" for those conditioned to think scholarship, both the TDYCC and the Town's Parks Department run ala carte summer programs that resemble individual camp offerings.
But how much does this financial aid cost taxpayer wallets? Well just for those items that are cured by "scholarships" (and not considering such amenities as subsidized housing, etc.) the bill currently comes to $120,000. The undisguised problem that our Town leaders are pussyfooting around (Dancing with the Czars) is that this money is not all going to the truly needy but to those who (discretion on my part) are skillful at "networking" aka "you've got to have friends". But even that does not address the biggest problem: there is no cap on how much this largesse can cost taxpayers as the Town Supervisor told the TDYCC that no resident unable to pay should be excluded from Town programs. That buys a lot of votes but no books for the Library or bags to put raked leaves in.
Why are there two different camps servicing the town of unincorporated Greenburgh?
What the newest reporter fails to recognize (getting his information from Feiner's rat pack instead of asking the disloyal opposition) is that this is not a new matter. It is only receiving exposure now because it is the latest opportunity to make it appear that the Town (Feiner) is taking an interest in long-standing problems. This in turn validates the "Advisory Commission" and Feiner for sponsoring this show with but one act.
However there is no excuse for this reporter to continue to memorialize the word "scholarship" as it has no bearing to education but rather to attending summer camp (the Town being unique in the nation in running duplicative, costly summer programs -- the real waste) or a nutrition program (giving new meaning to the General Electric College BOWL). Because everything in Greenburgh is not what it appears to be (perpetuated by the media); instead scholarship = free ride. "Scholarship" is the "duck" in the sally "if it looks like; it if walks like; if it talks like...".
But what is really changing in the end resembles "the more things change, the more they remain the same". The Town has lots of disclosure forms and applications already existing and covering a variety of topics but no one reviews them. The notion that the Department Head will be hereafter responsible is laughable in that they, Department Heads are already responsible by virtue of being the big cheese.
And should someone get caught failing to live up to their obligations, let me suggest their excuse in advance "can't be everywhere all the time and budget cuts have removed the staff I need to police this area..." This no doubt is why Departments routinely respond to FOIL requests that the requested document doesn't exist: the TDYCC being a prime example of a place where everything is kept on file in someone's cerebellum. Were the public to FOIL a new, consistent, application form, all the relevant information would be "redacted" to protect privacy and thus cover-ups will be sustained.
More of the dog and pony show whose only purpose is to red flag what some residents always knew; don't trust Feiner and his lap dog, Hochberg who served hard time for fraud. What was evident from the start of the widespread adoption of computers is equally valid here in this newest version of "efficiency"; call it "Consistency 2.0" if you need a donkey to pin the "tale" on: garbage in, garbage out.
Hal Samis