Tax levy hike at 2 percent, 14 faculty positions would be cut
The Bethlehem Central School District on Wednesday, April 6, adopted an $86.8 million spending plan for the 2011-12 school year.
The proposal, which will go to voters May 17, calls for a 2 percent increase in the tax levy. The budget is $1.5 million less than the current year’s budget.
The school board has been approving various cuts for weeks now, including the closure of Clarksville Elementary School. Four teachers will be shed in that controversial move, but another 10 faculty positions will be cut elsewhere, in addition to other staffing reductions.
The assumed number of layoffs was much higher before the Bethlehem Central Teachers Association offered a partial pay freeze in the coming year. Other unions made similar concessions. The district also recently saw $465,000 in aid money returned in the final state budget, though it will still take a significant revenue hit year-to-year.
Anything helps, but we are still at a loss of about $2.3 million for our state aid funds, said Assistant Superintendent Jody Monroe.
The teaching reductions will mean fewer class sections and slightly increased average class sizes next year. Overall enrollment is projected to decrease, however.
The board did decide to return one teacher to the elementary level, making the total number of faculty cuts there seven. There was concern expressed by several parents at the meeting that class sizes at Elsmere Elementary would be too high, with classes of 26 and 27 students common. A combination classroom for grades 4 and 5 proposed for that school also drew negative comments.
`As an educator myself, those are high numbers…especially in the second grade,` said parent Chris Jansen, one of several in the audience who protested the class sizes at Elsmere.
Though it’s not definite what the exact effect of that teacher addition will be, Superintendent Michael Tebbano advised the board to adopt it.
`Adding the position will allow us to create a little more flexibility in the sections,` he said.
The closure of Clarksville was clearly still on the minds of many, and some members of the public asked the board to reconsider its 5-2 decision to shutter the school for an estimated $880,000 savings in next year’s budget.
New Scotland Councilman Douglas LaGrange read a letter to the board he said was on behalf of the Clarksville community, and argued the changing state aid situation and union concessions warrant a revisiting of the issue.
`The determination to close Clarksville Elementary on a budgetary considerations is no longer valid,` he said.
The board also on Wednesday reviewed the technology department’s budget for the coming year. It elected to restore $125,000 of funding to the technology replacement fund that had been cut out of this year’s budget (board members Matt Downey voted against this restoration, saying he’d prefer to see the item only partially refunded).
The district will not, however, be pursuing a `1:1 computing` program aimed at putting a laptop, smartphone or tablet device in the hands of most students. It had earlier in the year proposed putting to voters a bonding resolution to spend $8 million over five years to get that underway. That was pared back to a $500,000 item and later eliminated altogether.
The district will, however, make planned upgrades to the high school’s network over the summer and the school board will consider allowing students to bring their own wireless devices (like smartphones or tablets) to school next year.
`We do still need to upgrade our network…so we still will push forward, just in smaller steps, to have more technology access for our students and teachers,` Monroe said.
A few audience members during a public comment period said administrators should be let go to save teaching positions. One administrative position`the Clarksville principal`is reduced under the budget.
The district has four principals at the high school, three at the middle school and one at each elementary school, Tebbano said. He argued that’s fairly lean given BC’s student population.
`Cutting out more administrators than we have right now will seriously jeopardize our ability to do our jobs properly,` he said.
Voters will also see a referendum to purchase new school buses. This year’s proposal is to buy six buses to replace old ones, at a cost of $375,000 to be bonded over five years.
The budget was adopted in a unanimous vote.“
