BCS Plan To Give Away School Buildings Is Tabled

by Thaddeus Flint
A vote by the Berlin School Board on whether to offer its vacant elementary schools to the Town of Stephentown and to the Grafton Fire District failed to pass Wednesday at the monthly School Board meeting in Cherry Plain.
Board President Gina Goodermote has been leading the charge to rid the District of Stephentown Elementary and Grafton Elementary as a means of saving the thousands of dollars every year which is currently spent to keep the buildings mothballed. [private]Letters of interest were received from the Town of Stephentown and the Grafton Fire District, and Goodermote jumped at the chance to off load the real estate before they had to be added to next year’s budget. “$50,000 is wasted money that would be better spent elsewhere,” she said.
Goodermote had proposed that the matter be put to a public ballot on March 13. If the public agreed, the buildings could be gifted for as little as $1. “I think it is up to the people in the Berlin School District,” said Goodermote, “the people who pay taxes. We need to keep going forward. We are either keeping these schools in our budget or not. They are sitting there deteriorating…let the five towns say yea or nay.”
Board Member John Nash is the most adamant in keeping the schools in the budget. “It is an outrage to the towns and the District,” said Nash. “These buildings belong to all five towns. A dollar is ridiculous!” Nash would prefer to keep ownership over the properties and lease or rent them to the towns. If it does ever come down to selling them, Nash wants to try to get more than basically nothing. “We have a fiscal responsibility to get the best price possible,” said Nash. “We are in a tough fiscal place.”
Board Member Alan Webster agreed. “One dollar is appalling…maybe the Petersburgh Baptist Church will give us $2, and we will double our profits,” he said. Webster felt that the District needs to wait longer, at least until May, to see what kind of responses they might receive from the letters School Superintendant Dr. Stephen Young sent out to other possible interested parties at the end of 2011. “We are not going to have transparency being on the market for 18 days,” said Webster, “we are jumping the gun on this.” Webster also pointed out that it’s “hypocritical” for a school to be constantly admonishing its students to do their homework when “we are not doing our own homework.” Webster advised getting a real estate agent.
“It was listed with a real estate agent, and we got no bites,” said Board Member Rachel Finney. “Put it out to the taxpayers, and see what they want,” she advised.
“That guy was a joke, Rachel,” said Nash. “A man from Poughkeepsie with his sign,” was how Nash described the previous failed attempt to sell the Stephentown Elementary School.
Board Member Frank Zwack said that the time had come to do something. He felt that by turning the buildings over to the towns they are in they will still be useful as community centers to the people they were built for in the first place. By selling them to a private interest, the Towns would lose places that had long been very important to their existence. Spending $50,000 a year to keep them up and keep them empty was not fiscally responsible either. Zwack was adamant that the matter be brought to a public vote in March. “Voters should see these facilities are available to them,” he said. Zwack is also in favour of gifting them for a dollar.
A member of the audience then called out, “Do you do that with your business Frank? For a dollar?”
Nash took issue with Zwack’s perception that spending $50,000 a year on two properties worth around a million dollars each at fair market value was too much. All buildings need upkeep. “That’s common sense,” said Nash. Giving $2,000,000 dollars away for $2 to save $50,000 is not common sense for Nash.
For Board Member Bev Stewart giving the schools to the towns is an option she could support. “I can live with that” she said. What bothers her is that neither the Town of Stephentown nor the Grafton Fire District have given the Board any concrete plans for their future use. “Are they even prepared to take them over?” she asked. “The people of Grafton don’t even know yet if this is something they support,” she pointed out. “What do we do if they come back and don’t want it?” she wondered. Rushing the matter through in March for her is premature. “We should wait until May,” she said. Nash agreed. “This can wait until May,” he said.
Board Member Jim Willis seemed to agree with this too. He also was not sure that gifting them away when the District was in dire need of funds is the best idea, but he “accepted to do what the public wants.”
A vote was finally taken to end the argument. As expected Nash, Webster and Stewart voted against holding a vote on the matter in March. Goodermote, Zwack and Finney voted for it. Willis, in a surprising vote, cast his ballot against, effectively tabling the matter for a few more months.
For the Grafton Fire District, this will most likely give them more time to put together a more comprehensive plan on what they would do with Grafton Elementary School should they ever be given the option to acquire it. Grafton Fire Commissioner Bill Keenan and Fireman Craig Southard had appeared before the Board earlier in the night to invite Board members to attend a discussion meeting on February 6 at 6 pm at the Fire Hall in Grafton. Right now they are in the very early stages on that project. Keenan had asked if the District could provide a breakdown of yearly costs for maintenance and repairs of the Grafton School. They want an idea of what they are getting into before they make any further decisions.
“Who is the Grafton Fire District?” asked Nash. Stewart was curious too. Both live in Grafton and had no idea what the Fire District does. Keenan explained they are a five member Board elected by the people of Grafton, and they administer the Fire District taxes. Southard explained that they were not only considering the building for their use but for the Town as well. “Maybe one day the Grafton Town Hall offices would move there as well,” he said.
In the meantime, the School District wishes to engage the Capital District Area School Development Association (CASDA) from Albany to perform an efficiency and effectiveness audit of the District in order to find ways it could save money in the future. Stewart voiced her concern that CASDA might be too friendly with BOCES to give an independent overview. “We need a fresh look,” she said. “I am not sure we have the right person.”
Young pointed out that “CASDA is a very well known organization” and their report would be ready for the upcoming budget talks. Nash agreed. “This information could be invaluable going into the budget season,” he said. The report will cost around $30,000. But CASDA has promised that their information would allow the District to easily recoup its costs, and more. “I’m going to hold them to that,” said Nash.
A vote was taken, and only Stewart was against the hiring of CASDA, though Finney and Webster abstained.
A Projection Of Doom
Any savings will probably be direly needed. The District’s Business Manager, William Burke, who is also the District’s Transportation Supervisor, presented a projection of doom. Should all things remain the same, the District will be $578,000 in debt by the same time next year. A year later that would be $706,000, then $938,000, $1.1 million and $1.4 million by 2017. “I didn’t say I had good news,” he said. Burke did, though, state that these are just “the worst case scenarios.” Future budgets would most likely be balanced budgets, but only through difficult decisions. “We have got a lot of work ahead of us,” he said. When asked by Webster if these years included future Capital Projects – he thought the idea was to do one each year – Burke said they did not as the current Capital Project would take at least four years to complete anyway.
The Board did come together on one subject. All voted in favor of allowing personnel who are also first responders in the towns to be able to go out and save lives and property should the need arise during their work hours at the school. A memorandum of agreement has been prepared and approved by both the CSEA bargaining unit and the District’s legal counsel. Stewart only wanted to make sure a sign-out and sign-in sheet were implemented so the District could see at the end of a year how much time was being used. Nash wanted to make it known that even though Mark Primeau, Chairman of the Fire Commissioners for Berlin, seemed to insinuate at last month’s Board meeting that the process was too slow, there “ was no dragging of feet. This is due process,” said Nash. “We all support what these individuals do.”
The night ended with Zwack reprimanding Nash in regard to a letter Nash had published in the December 2 Eastwick Press. According to Zwack, Nash had listed incorrect data on the number of staff and students in the District. Zwack had different data he had received after he sent a Freedom of Information request to the very school he oversees. He didn’t explain why he felt he had to invoke a law created to overcome government organizations that don’t want to give out information anyone is rightfully entitled to anyway, especially as he would need that information to do the job he is appointed to do. “Voters are entitled to accuracy,” stated Zwack. Nash responded by saying he got his numbers from the District as well. “Oh well, my bad,” said Nash. Stewart then asked, “Was that on the agenda for tonight?”
“No,” said Nash, “but when you are Frank Zwack you can do anything you want to.”[/private]