Young Shocked By BCS Bond Impasse

by Thaddeus Flint
At last week’s Berlin School Board meeting, the Board failed to vote to authorize a bond of $5.1 million for the renovation of its school buildings and for bringing the Berlin School District closer to School Superintendant Dr. Stephen Young’s vision of a 21st century school district. Board President Gina Goodermote and Board Member Jim Willis had put together a plan to use $5.1 million in State aid and $1.75 million of the District’s Capital Reserve fund for this purpose.
[private]This week Dr. Young had something to say about that vote. “I was in a state of shock,” he said at Tuesday’s budget workshop meeting. “I was disappointed. How could this have happened?” The $5.1 million needed for the project, to Young, is essentially “a gift from the State of New York. How could this Board not vote unanimously?” While the Board did vote 4 to 3 for the project, by State law a 2/3rds majority is required for such an authorization, so the resolution did not pass last week.
Young then urged the Board to rethink their positions when the matter came up again at this workshop. “Without updating these facilities we are going to be left even further behind,” he said. “I don’t think we should let it die. I think it can still happen.”
Well, he thought wrong. When a vote was taken Board President Gina Goodermote and Board Members Rachel Finney, Frank Zwack and Jim Willis voted for the bond; Board Members Alan Webster, Jr. and John Nash voted against. Board Member Bev Stewart was absent. So once again a 2/3rds majority was not achieved, and Berlin will not be getting their $5.1 million “gift” from the State of New York, never mind that residents of the District themselves approved the plan back in December.
Young once again looked shocked, but nobody else seemed all that surprised. Goodermote is tenacious though. The project is largely from her hands so there is little doubt the project is not dead and buried once and for all.
The Empty School Buildings
Goodermote’s other plan, to let the voters decide what will become of the District’s two empty school buildings in Grafton and Stephentown, did finally come to fruition. Last week Willis, Stewart, Nash and Webster voted against the idea. This week Willis changed his vote. “It’s the taxpayer’s money,” he said, “it’s time to let the public vote on this.” With Stewart missing, the vote was 4 to 2, with only Nash and Webster still holding out against the possibility of gifting away valuable property for a dollar apiece.
“That doesn’t really make any sense,” Nash had said before the vote. With an almost certain increase in the tax levy in the next budget, Nash felt that getting only $2 for the properties would be “short sighted and a dereliction of duty as a Board Member.” The Towns have not even decided themselves whether they want these financial burdens shifted onto their backs. “They have a right to refuse,” said Goodermote. “If it gets voted down then the for   sale signs go up, and we go on.”
The residents will now decide.
Preliminary Budget
The projected $2 of revenue from the sale of these facilities will not really make too much of a dent in next year’s budget. At the moment the preliminary budget is $17,699,155. Preliminary, of course, is the key word here. The District’s Business Manager, William Burke, made a point of saying that at least five times as he went about presenting the latest figures to the Board. Since he was using a tax levy increase of 5.3%, saying it was all “preliminary” might have been his way of keeping the lynch mobs at bay, at least for a few more weeks.
With aid from the Educational Jobs Fund dropping this year from $420,076 to $0, some way of making up that loss has to be found. At the same time increases in spending are projected.
The Operating Expenses budget has a preliminary increase of $333,597. A good portion of this comes from the Regular Education budget, which includes teacher and non-instructional salaries and benefits, textbooks and BOCES, with a total increase of $121,390 for 2013. Three of the largest increases are health insurance, retirement and salaries. The preliminary budget projects those to increase by $230,454, $174,172 and $113,011 respectively.
Burke highlighted some of the proposed increases to the Instructional Budget. These are:
• adding a .6 teacher for the school within a school program – $28,252
• adding a special education/reading teacher for the Middle School – $80,482
• adding a .5 art teacher for the Middle School/High School – $27,004
• professional development – $20,000
• A PEP Grant for a .5 gym teacher is ending, so the position now must be funded at $15,612.
Some preliminary reductions to the Instructional Budget are:
• a social studies teacher will retire and be replaced by a social studies teacher at a lower salary – $34,401
• a technology and a science teacher will be replaced – $186,594
• reduction of a mentor coordinator and an English Language Arts (ELA) coordinator – $7,620
At the end of the day, the final preliminary budget figure for expenditures in 2013 is $324,755 greater than in 2012. With the net loss in aid, State and Federal, projected at around $442,717 that’s where a 5.3% increase in the tax levy would come in. This would generate approximately $440,000. But that is almost certainly not going to happen. First there is a State mandated tax cap of 2%, though this is not actually 2% because there is a formula that can be used to account for increases in the cost of living and the State pension plans. The Berlin District’s 2% tax cap is 3.009%. A 5.3% increase is theoretically possible, but only if a super majority of taxpayers vote for it. The school tax levy has not been increased since 2009, and even then the increase was only 1.2%. The 3.009% increase would raise about $250,000. With this preliminary budget, using 3.009% instead of 5.3% as the tax levy would leave a deficit of $190,000. Cutting that much would almost surely involve cutting jobs. In this light, a 0% tax levy once again for the District looks simply unattainable. If only there were something that could be sold, a building or two perhaps?
The Board did not have much to say at the end of Burke’s presentation. Perhaps they were daunted by the tough decisions they will need to make in the next few weeks. Goodermote did say that the Board as a whole will need to figure out where to save some more money. “We have to work together,” she said, “because that 5% is a just no way!” The next budget meeting will be held on April 3.
“Just remember,” added Burke, “it’s all preliminary.”[/private]