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Mostly Cloudy O’side schools hold first budget workshop
About 80 people attended the first of at least four budget workshops focusing on the 2015-16 school year, ahead of the budget vote on May 19. This first workshop, on Feb. 3 at School No. 4, took up the administrative and capital components of the budget.
The school district released that section of the draft budget before the meeting. It can be found at http://www.oceansideschools.org/BOE/14-15/Agenda/Budget%20Workshop%201%202-3-15.pdf.
“It’s a fluid, working document,” Superintendent Phyllis Harrington said of the budget. “And nothing is in stone until the board actually adopts their budget, which will probably happen at the very end of March or very early April.” Harrington also noted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s actions to delay state aid to schools unless certain reforms are passed makes it hard for the district to know exactly how much money it will receive.
Throughout the meeting, Chris Van Cott, the assistant superintendent for business, pointed out various savings, including a $10,200 decrease in postage costs, as well as an $8,750 reduction in recruitment and the substitute teacher registry, which will now be done through an automated system with BOCES.
Van Cott also explained that there is a projected $8,600 increase in the cost of renting and transporting optical scanning voting machines because the state normally waives that cost for schools. “However, at this time they have not passed a waiver for the May 19 budget vote,” he said. “So we need to be prepared for those more expensive voting machines.”
Board of Education Trustee Kim Garrity said she preferred older, lever-based voting machines. “I really have a problem spending a penny on these computerized ones,” she said. “Even though by law, we have to.”
Herb Pitkowsky asked if the district could e-mail school newsletters instead of printing them. “It’s a lovely newsletter, it’s very nice glossy paper, it’s color, but people should be allowed to opt to get it by email, and we don’t need to print as many,” said Pitkowsky. “We really need to move on that. We’ve been doing well in terms of technology, but really, the cost of $17,000 is exorbitant.”
