Positions to be cut, taxes upped in proposed school budget

Written by Greg Maker

Thursday, 04 March 2010 20:09

Facing a 15 percent cut in state aid, the City School District is proposing a preliminary budget that would increase the tax rate for property owners by 3.8 percent. With a reduction of $3.65 million from last year’s budget, the district is estimating that there will be approximately 25 to 35 positions cut.

“While our country begins to show signs of emerging from the devastating economic crisis of the last two years, the same observation cannot be applied to school districts in New York State,” stated Superintendent Richard Organisciak. “When the proposed state aid cuts are combined with the increase attributed to mandatory retirement contributions, increases in utility costs, increases in summer special education contributions and negotiated contractual commitments, our district is faced with cuts of a magnitude that can wreak havoc with all aspects of our existing educational and service programs.”

Facing financial challenges, the City School District commenced identifying possible areas where consolidation and reduction or elimination of services could occur. After gaining input from the community, the responses garnered that maintenance and continued growth of instructional programs should continue.

“As in our previous year’s budget, we have continued a hard-line vacancy replacement process which we believe will result in our ability to merge existing responsibilities and services without filling positions,” Organisciak said. “We continue to pursue reductions in refinancing for existing interest payments on debt and bond obligations and expect to realize significant savings as a result.”

According to Organisciak, in meetings with principals and directors, position reductions took center stage. Administrators were asked to identify reductions that could potentially damage school programs. Furthermore, 25 employees have committed to retiring at the end of this school year. This includes two administrators, 19 pedagogic staff and four civil service employees. The district is also expecting 10 to 15 resignations, relocations and separations to occur before the 2010-11 school year begins.

“These decisions have been extremely hard to come by and represent the first time in anyone’s recent memory that our school budget has been decreased from one year to the next,” Organisciak said. “It is our belief that this is a realistic budget which takes into account the financial challenges of our city, community, parents and employees while working to preserve that which we value most, namely the quality of our educational programs.”

The total budget is $225,813,303. The first budget review session was held on March 3. Further budget review sessions are scheduled at City Hall for Tuesdays, March 9 and 16. A Committee of the Whole session of the City School District Board of Education will be held at Albert Leonard Middle School on Tuesday, March 23.

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