Sewanhaka makes pitch to local voters

Sewanhaka Central High School District leaders traveled to last week for one of nearly two dozen community meetings to help explain and defend this year’s school budget. The budget, which will not be locked in until after the Herald goes to press, is anticipated to raise the local education tax levy by 4.4 percent.

Meierdiercks was at the Locustwood/Gotham Civic Association meeting on March 18, talking about the changes that have been made and what residents can expect to get for their money this fall. He was joined by his Assistant Superintendent in charge of finance Maureen Kenney, and both were aggressively defending every expenditure at a meeting that that filled up slowly as it progressed.

Revealing a $156.4 million budget, the Sewanhaka superintendent was ready to defend every expenditure, and told residents frankly that their taxes stood to go up, but that there was little the district could do to stop the increase without impacting student activities and classrooms.

“We believe our budget will be in this range, between a 3.6 and 3.8 percent increase year-to-year,” Meierdiercks said. “The tax levy with the governor’s proposed state aid cut is included in this estimate.” The superintendent was quick to remind voters that the tax levy increase would likely be much smaller if Gov. David Paterson’s state school aid cut did not come through. The estimated 4.4 percent tax levy increase would, in actuality, be a 1.5 percent increase if state school aid remained the same. He also admitted that the school board was not holding out hope of ever seeing that money from a state in the midst of a budget crisis.

To frame the debate in stark terms, Meierdiercks advised residents on what would happen if the schools budget failed to pass it’s first vote on May 18 and a potential second vote in June.

“The state is truly in a very bad financial position,” Meierdiercks said. “If we can’t pass this budget, the total elimination of the entire sports program is on the table.”

He said that even eliminating team and individual sporting events altogether wouldn’t save the district enough money, in the event the proposed budget couldn’t pass.

One Locustwood civic member advocated for saving the $6 million the school spends on buses by having students at each of the district’s five schools walk to their classes every day. Meierdiercks said that the elimination of buses wasn’t a possibility by law, and that helping students get to school on time — including parochial school students who live in the district — was a facet of the budget that the board had spend many difficult hours debating.

Late bus service in the district is set to be restored in the 2010-11 budget after being eliminated from the current spending plan.

Also set to be restored is a district driver’s education class — at an increased price to make it budget-neutral.

Adult education and summer school, two items that were cut from the previous budget, are not on track to be restored