By Cindy J. Roth
"It's time to maintain and be fiscally responsible," said Schools Superintendent Arnie Dodge at the district's budget hearing on May 20. "The tax rate increase is reasonable and we tried to keep all programs intact. The budget is reasonable based on the difficult state aid situation."
School district officials have been calling this year's budgeting process the perfect storm, owing to the decrease in state aid, increase in unfunded state mandates and the county's reassessment process that has altered numbers making it confusing for some to understand their new tax rates and bills.
Rising fixed costs accounted for 67 percent of the 5.99 budget increase. Those fixed costs included rising utility rates, transportation, health insurance, workman's compensation insurance, social security, employee retirement funds, contractual 3.25 percent teacher salary increases and special education and occupational education allotments.
The district also experienced a 6.9 percent decrease in state aid, even after the Legislature restored about $300,000 to the district when they passed a state budget by overriding Gov. George Pataki's veto earlier this month.
"Legislators restored some money for us, but they did not restore the full amount of state aid we had last year," said Marie Girace, board of education president.
As a result, the district was forced to make small cuts across the board in all its programs. The athletics department will be cutting all coach's salaries by 10 percent to make up for its $9,158 budget decrease, according to Girace.
The district was able to maintain all teaching and teacher aide positions and they have budgeted to replace the high school psychologist, guidance counselor and a third grade teacher, who are retiring at the end of this school year. One full-time teaching position was added this year at Centre Avenue School for a new special education class targeted at third- through fifth-graders.
"What we did not budget for this year is a math technology person," said Girace. "That will have to wait."
The other 33 percent of the 5.99 budget increase represents increases to programs and maintenance, including finishing the clean up of oil residue found around the high school earlier this school year and following through on technology initiatives throughout the district.
"The key word is balance," said Dodge. "It's not easy to do. I happen to think this budget takes into account balance."
Karenlyn Barone contributed to this article.
