Community forum addresses Cuomo’s proposed budget
Mohonasen’s first community budget forum was a little hazy on what the district would be facing, but with the Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed budget released the picture might have become clearer the task is more daunting.
Mohonasen Central School District Superintendent Kathleen Spring gave an update on the budget process during the second community budget forum on Tuesday, Feb. 15, which had her presentation coinciding with statements made by the governor about his budget and schools tightening their belts. Spring also noted the district has the eighth lowest per-pupil cost out of all districts in the state according to the most recent data for the 2008-2009 school year.
I would contend that we don’t have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem, said Spring. `We are very realistic when put our budgets together.`
State aid to the district is planned to drop by 13 percent for the district, or $4,499,257, which leaves the district having to cut $2.8 million to reach to reach a 2 percent tax increase coinciding with the proposed tax cap. Also, a 3 percent tax increase would require cutting almost $2.65 million.
Overall, Spring didn’t seem to agree with the governor’s budget presentation and felt it was misleading to the public.
`The way [the governor’s] budget was presented, it perpetuates the misinformation about schools,` said Spring. `There is definitely no quick fix, but these aid cuts are really deep, they are extremely deep, and when I keep saying ‘unprecedented’ I really mean that. We are going to be talking about things in this district that none of us ever thought we would have to consider.`
Now, more than previous years, the dollar values of programs and services that aren’t mandated are starting to shape what the district will be offering moving forward. When community members broke into groups there were discussions on what non-mandated reductions should be made and also what shouldn’t face reductions.
`The numbers are driving us to prioritize our values,` said Spring. `We have to prioritize what is important to us and then we are going to have to make choices and they are going to be very, very difficult choices, harder than I think we ever made before.`
The district was also labeled as being in fiscal distress in 2005, noted Spring, which affected their bond rating, but since then the BOE and school officials worked to reach a more sound financial situation.
`If you didn’t know that that’s kind of the shape we were in, I’m glad you didn’t, because we tried not to make it a crisis,` said Spring. `We’ve always tried to balance what do our students need and what can our community afford and sometimes that is a struggle to figure that out.`
While difficult budgets aren’t a new problem, the solutions are not any easier to arrive at for school officials and community members.
Groups received a budget development worksheet, which outlined associated costs for non-mandated expenses that could be reduced. Some of the larger areas of savings, which community members seemed to be in some agreement in cutting, were reducing administrators and transportation expenses.
If two full-time administration positions were cut there would be an estimated savings up to $140,000. Spring said all administrative salaries in the district only account for less than 1 percent of the total budget. If all administrators were removed there would a savings of $1.6 million, which still isn’t enough to close the budget gap.
`As you can see this is a challenge,` said Spring after the groups returned to report their discussions. `Please go out to your neighbors and tell them that this is really serious. I think that people don’t know that, or believe that magic pill or wand is going to be waved and it has happened in the past, so I think people have become somewhat numb to this.`
Transportation could also provide cost savings in a few different areas. If transportation for students in sixth through twelfth grade living within 1 mile of the school was dropped a savings up to $120,000 could be achieved. Also, if that reduction in services is stretched to the same group of students within 2 miles of the school there is a possible savings up to $400,000.
Community groups also expressed an interest in working with other districts to help reduce costs, such as sending summer school students to different schools for certain classes.
Field trips were another area all groups reached a similar consensus to cut, with a possible savings up to $58,000 if eliminated at all levels. The idea of having `virtual field trips` instead of traveling to locations was brought up as a creative solution to allow students to still achieve some sort of outside enrichment.
While there was still a consensus that more people employed by the district were present, there was a stronger showing of residents and community members than at the first forum.
`It was really great to see more community members here than we saw a couple of weeks ago,` said BOE President Dominic Cafarelli. `The more people that come here the more ideas we can get.“