Mar 27, 2008
School officials expected to approve budget
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Board votes tonight
Elementary school foreign language is in, some custodians are out: Those are the instructions the Katonah-Lewisboro school board gave to administrators to create a potential budget of $107,357,000. Although the board may still tweak the budget before adopting it at tonight’s board meeting, it is likely that the budget the voters see will be substantially the same. This would represent a 3.6% increase over this year’s budget, or what appears to be a 6.8% increase over this year’s actual expenses, taking into account the $3.1 million surplus that has been forecast.
At last week’s board meeting, the majority of the board appeared pleased with a budget-to-budget increase of less than 4%, although board member Dr. Peter Treyz argued that, given the financial climate, the board should have strived for a flat, no-increase budget.
“We really should be coming in with a flat budget,” Dr. Treyz said. “We on the board are supposed to be supporting the two-thirds of the people in the community that don’t have children as well.”
Board President Peter Breslin said a flat budget would be difficult, especially this far into the budget process. When he asked Dr. Treyz how to achieve a flat budget, which would require cutting about $4 million, Dr. Treyz said he did not know.
Foreign language
Included in the budget the board will consider at tonight’s meeting are several initiatives that had been vigorously debated over recent months.
A majority of the board last week, with the exception of Dr. Treyz, supported adding Spanish instruction to the elementary school in the first grade, at a cost of $95,000 for one teacher. This program would be rolled out to successive grades in upcoming years. This would likely commit the board to adding one additional teacher each year until the current kindergarten class reaches seventh grade, where foreign language instruction now begins.
Dr. Treyz said he did not think the value of Spanish at the elementary level was worth adding it, although he said he would gladly vote to add Mandarin Chinese, which he considered a “more practical” language.
Although board members Mark Lipton and Felycia Sugarman argued that a second proposal, to add French, Spanish and Latin instruction in the sixth grade, should be followed through as well, that addition was nixed because of the difficulty in finding qualified teachers. Sixth grade language teachers must be certified to teach both the language and elementary school, and dual-certified Latin teachers are almost nonexistent, said Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Jocelyn Humphries.
Mr. Lipton suggested the district consider not teaching Latin, perhaps eliminating the entire program, but Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Roelle pointed out that that kind of decision needed to be studied carefully, rather than made at the last minute before a budget proposal was to be adopted.
High school English
Under the new proposal, “writing labs” that students would attend twice a month in place of their lunch period would be instituted in the ninth grade. Despite board members’ determination to expand the program to the 10th grade as well, the administration insisted that rolling out the program in the 10th grade was not feasible.
But although 10th grade students will not participate in the writing labs next year, Dr. Roelle said it would be possible to remove one teacher from the science department and add one to the English department, thereby lowering the average class size in 10th grade English to 18 students. This would improve the quality of instruction students receive by increasing the amount of time each teacher could spend on each student, Dr. Roelle said. The science teacher was able to be removed because of lowered enrollments in the sciences next year.
This plan was accepted by the board and integrated into the proposed budget.
Operations and maintenance
The largest cause of division among board members was over proposed cuts to the operations and maintenance department. Although Dr. Roelle had recommended only a slight increase to the department’s budget, which would have entailed the cut of one custodian and one maintenance worker, the board had previously asked for proposals to lower that department’s budget even further.
Director of Operations and Maintenance Tom Psomas came back with three “levels” of potential budget cuts — a 2%, 4% and 6% cut from Dr. Roelle’s initial recommendation. The 2% cut would eliminate a second custodian and some supplies and equipment, as well as money for substitute custodians and overtime. The 4% cut would eliminate a third custodian and a second maintenance worker, as well as more substitute time. And the 6% cut, which would reflect a 4.6% reduction in the overall operations and maintenance budget from this year, would eliminate still more overtime and substitute hours, as well as additional equipment and supplies.
Mr. Psomas warned that he did not support any of the cuts.
“There’s going to be an impact,” he said. “There’s going to be some compromises — areas not being vacuumed on a daily basis” and other tasks eliminated or deferred.
But the board seemed to support at least some cuts. Four of the board members — Mr. Gordon, Mr. Lipton, Dr. Treyz, and Felycia Sugarman — supported the 6% reduction. Eve Hundt supported only a 4% reduction, while Mr. Breslin said he supported a minimal 2% reduction but could go as far as 4%. Board Vice President Warren Schloat argued that the board should follow Dr. Roelle’s and Mr. Psomas’ recommendations and not make any cuts at all.
“I think it is very difficult for us, with very little info, to go in and ask them to make a cut like this,” Mr. Schloat said.
Although a majority of the board supported the heaviest cuts to the operations and maintenance budget, Mr. Breslin urged that the board compromise on 4% for the moment, then take up the issue again at tonight’s meeting. This was the approach that was finally agreed upon.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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