Mohonasen Central School District’s budget forecast for next school year doesn’t appear to provide any relief from continuing staffing cuts.
District Superintendent Kathleen Spring presented an overview of the initial projections and possibilities for the 2012-13 budget during the Board of Education meeting on Monday, Dec. 5. Last year, the district cut 34 positions and next year’s budget has the school district considering cuts to elementary art and music programs along with librarians, according to Spring.
Despite 2011-12 budget cuts — including the full-time equivalent of 19 teachers, four teaching assistants, nine support staff and two-and-a-half administrative positions — Spring said the upcoming budget is “much more grim.”
“We are going to have to look at significant budget cuts again,” said Spring. “We are going to have to make very, very difficult decisions this year.”
Despite the gloomy outlook looming over the district, Spring said she is still optimistic about public education. She said the district and residents must advocate the importance of every child receiving a quality education.
“We are trying to get the message out to our legislators and to the governor about what is happening to public schools because of the budget cuts,” said Spring.
Spring suggested if there is a grassroots movement of residents going to the local offices of their state representatives to express their concerns, it could provoke change in cuts to education.
“What I am hoping is that we can get people upset enough to speak out,” said Spring. “We are hoping we get people out to talk about what their school means to them and what they want to happen.”
Spring said this is the fifth year the district has faced decreasing or flat state aid, while costs are continuing to increase. She argued the district has made fiscally responsible decisions and made cuts while trying to maintain programs.
“Over the past five years our budget has really started to crumble, the foundation is crumbling,” said Spring. “We have done a very good job as a district trying to balance what we need for our students and listening to our community, even with the difficult choices we have been trying to make.”
The district’s fiscal responsibility is ultimately its undoing, according to Spring.
“We’ve always tired to balance our students’ needs and be creative and develop programs, but make it affordable for our community,” she said. “Now that is working against us, because the tighter our budget is the more deep we have to cut into our programs.”
Districts similar to Mohonasen, said Spring, get “hit harder,” because the funding formula doesn’t fairly supply aid to school districts, with lower wealth districts feeling the most pain.
Spring added most people don’t have the choice to support higher school taxes even if they oppose cuts. The “wealth index ratio,” which measures property wealth, rings in at 0.64 for the district, she said. A ratio of 1.0 would be an average amount of property wealth.
“People are struggling to make ends meet,” she said. “They want schools to be good … but they just can’t afford it at this point.”
Since the district’s budget is “lean,” said Spring, there isn’t a lot of “padding” to help absorb reductions in state aid.
“Although Gov. Cuomo continues to describe schools as bloated and inefficient, that would not apply to us … it doesn’t describe us,” she said.
A cut in state aid isn’t the only bad news, because $800,000 the district received from the federal teacher jobs bill isn’t resurfacing. This funding helped ease cuts in the current year’s budget, said Spring.
“There are unprecedented reductions in state and federal aid we received,” she said. “There is no real, true mandate relief.
Assistant Superintendent for Business Denise Swezey gave an overview of the eight-step process for calculation of the tax levy cap during the meeting. If the district exceeds the tax levy threshold after calculations, the budget would need to be approved by a margin of 60 percent instead of the normal 50 percent voter approval.
Any pension contribution costs increasing more than 2 percent are excluded from the tax levy cap restriction. Swezey said the support staff contribution rates are expected to increase from 16.3 percent to 18.9 percent, which allows for 0.6 percentage points to be excluded from the tax levy cap calculation. This would allow for $28,000 to be exempt from the tax cap, while $69,000 would be absorbed within it. The total support staff pension contribution is estimated to total just over $879,000 for the 2012-13 budget.
The teachers, principals and directors pension contribution rates for the district are estimated to increase from 11.1 percent to 12.5 percent in next year’s budget. This would result in an increase of more than $334,000, which falls within the cap since the percentage point difference is less than 2 percent at a 1.39 percent estimated increase. This represents a 17 percent expenditure increase though, said Swezey.
“One of things you keep hearing is mandate relief … but it doesn’t cover it. It is a just a way they are spinning the 2 percent cap information,” Swezey said.
Spring presented three theoretical tax levy scenarios and what reductions would mean. If the tax levy increase were 4.2 percent, the district would need to reduce the budget by around $2.4 million. If the tax levy increase were 3.4 percent, its spending would be reduced by $2.6 million. The district’s worst-case scenario would be a contingency budget, which would have the tax levy increasing by zero percent, necessitating in around $3.3 million in reductions.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to release his state budget around Jan. 15, which will give the district a more clear understanding of needed cuts. The first community budget forum is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m. at the high school. The Board of Education will adopt a proposed 2012-13 budget in April. For information on the district’s budget process and upcoming budget forums visit its website at www.mohonasen.org.
