If you’ve lowered the heat, cut back on eating out or put off big a big purchase in the past few months, you aren’t alone. Schools across the state have been getting frugal this year and plan to scale back even more next fall as they prepare to face the harsh reality of New York’s budget crisis.
Gov. David Paterson’s proposed budget calls for an overall 3.3 percent reduction in the amount of school aid the state hands out. Reductions to school districts will run from about 3 to 13 percent, based on the district’s wealth and other factors. The governor is hoping to close a deficit expected to balloon to $50 billion over the next four years.
The news has kicked off conversations in districts across the state as school officials enter next year’s budgeting process. Some are considering new and interesting ideas to pinch whatever pennies are available.
At the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake School District, Superintendent Jim Schultz began holding meetings with staff and faculty when the cuts were announced. Along with suggestion boxes, the district collected around 100 cost-saving ideas and recently tapped the public at a Tuesday, Jan. 20, public forum.
Our intention all along has been to continue this process with the public, said district spokeswoman Christy Multer.
Ideas include consolidating bus routes, cleaning buses and classrooms less often, cutting some modified sports teams and even turning off every other light in schools. Some, while good intentioned, may be simply impossible, said Multer.
`Ideas aren’t always something we can do,` she said. `Some are illegal, and some require a big up-front cost.`
The district has already instituted freezes on certain discretionary spending and conference attendance and will be reviewing staff vacancies to see if it can avoid replacing some workers. Wherever possible, the thermostats have been set at a lower temperature.
Still, it’s unlikely that these changes will even come close to making up for the proposed $1.6 million aid reduction for BH-BL.
At nearby Shenendehowa School District, officials took action to cap areas of this year’s budget before Paterson even released his budget. By cutting back spending on non-essential items like meals, supplies and conference attendance, the district hopes to spend $4 million less than planned, bringing this year’s budget to $141.7 million.
But that won’t be enough in savings, and officials are looking for creative ways to avoid passing the burden on to the taxpayer.
`The assistance from the state probably won’t be there, and the times are such that to ask the taxpayer to do more would be a false reality,` said Shenendehowa Superintendent L. Oliver Robinson. `It’s really forcing us to hearken back to our primary purpose for the school district,` which is educating students.
The district is looking at surrounding municipalities to ensure there is no overlapping of services on everything from road and grounds maintenance to emergency response.
Resident and staff suggestions are also being encouraged.
Officials at the Ballston Spa School District are not yet talking about specifics in their budget, but a proposed 16 percent reduction in school aid would result in the loss of more than $4 million in revenue, a gap that will be difficult to close.
`In the shell game of shifting state share and county share, the bottom line is that the burden still will fall on the local taxpayer,` said Superintendent Joseph Dragone, in a statement.
Like other schools, Ballston Spa instituted a spending freeze late last year and hopes to reap $200,000 in savings.
`Not knowing what was going to come for the rest of the year, the superintendent instructed people to withhold from any budget requests and spending any money that was not absolutely necessary,` said district spokesman Stuart Williams.
The unfortunate reality is that the majority of school budgets everywhere are comprised of personnel expenses (at Shenendehowa, Saratoga County’s largest district, 80 percent of the budget pays for personnel). That’s mostly contractual, and it can be difficult to negotiate changes. Thus, creative cost cutting can only go so far in making up for reduced aid.
`When you have entered into a legal contract, you can’t say ‘I’m sorry, we’re not going to honor that,’` said Multer, adding, `but sometimes, if you ask, people will let you out of a contract.`
Such is the case with BOCES newsletters that the district sends out. The printer allowed them to reduce the contracted number of issues by half to save BH-BL about $3,000 this year.
While that figure doesn’t seem impressive, scraping money from programs that were at one time taken for granted may be the only way schools can keep from shifting the burden to taxpayers.
`For this first time, we are compelled to make some of those critical, hard choices,` said Robinson, but they are choices that will have to be made. `Schools don’t go out of business.“