Administrators and School Board members say they put in hard work to construct budget
The South Colonie Central School District adopted a $91.1 million budget on Wednesday, April 13 after a process which Assistant Superintendent for Management Services Beverly Miller was a difficult one.
I think it’s a very good budget in comparison to other districts that have had to do severe budget cuts, she said. `I think we have done a very good job of protecting programs with a minimal amount of staffing reduction in comparison to other districts.`
Some of the extra space in the budget was given by some administrators retiring, which those positions were eliminated along with some teaching positions and monitor positions. Miller said those positions would not be brought back in the near future.
Miller said the district worked very hard to put out the 2011-12 school year budget, which includes a tax levy of 2.93 percent, which the district said at one point would be 3.42 percent before the New York State 2011-12 budget was passed. The Universal Pre-Kindergarten program was restored after the extra funding came through, tacking back on 44 slots in the program.
Board of Education President Brian Casey was most pleased with those additions because he has seen the effect it has had on his own grandchild.
`It improved his speech and his attention span in the classroom as a kindergartner,` he said.
Casey said that he is confident taxpayers will support the hard work the board and the district put into the budget then they go to vote on Tuesday, May 17. He added that with the way things are happening in the state government, the district had to pay close attention to what it was doing.
`With the economic state and the way things are happening downtown, we had to be prudent,` he said. `We had to reduce some things and some things, unfortunately, were eliminated We tried hard and I’ve had conversations with folks out in the community. I think they understand where we’re coming from.`
One of the major problems the district faced was the $20 million in mandates handed down by the state and federal governments. Miller said it is unfeasible to eliminate those costs from the budget and said she hopes legislators are more considerate next year.
`If it passes a tax cap, it must take the mandates into account,` she said of the proposed 2 percent tax cap. `I think there are some misnomers with the property tax cap and I think the general public would need a lot of education on it. It we be a 2 percent cap on the levy. In Colonie, there’s three different taxing entities they could shift based on equalization rates due to changes and assessments. So people would then be voting on the tax levy maximum, they wouldn’t be voting on the budget.`
For next year, Miller said the aid from the Federal Education and Jobs fund will be gone, already adding a $1.1 million to the district’s deficit for next year. She said that is something it will have to take into account.
Casey said with the new teacher evaluation system proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, he is questioning as to who is going to pay for it.
`Who is doing the evaluation?` he said. `And if a teacher is fired, are they going to fight it? Then we’d have to hire a lawyer because they would go through the unions.`
There was some issue with the public over the $1 million increase in the budget for teachers’ salaries. Miller said Superintendent Jon Buhner has been in discussions with the collective bargaining units, but said it has to be a mutual agreement to reopen contract negotiations.
`It cannot be one-sided,` she said. `Both sides have to mutually agree to open discussions.`
Casey said that both side are frustrated. He said teachers do want to look at their contracts. But after a few years of working on school budgets, he said he’s now able to understand how to construct a schools budget.
`You have to go through and make this work for kids,` he said. `We’re stewards of the taxpayer dollar. We have to spend prudent and get more bang for our buck.`
He encourages more people to come out to the school board meetings or even run for a school board position to get a better handle on exactly what goes on in constructing a district budget.
`There are a lot of things people don’t see when they don’t come to meetings,` he said.
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