RSS 2.0 FeedFebruary 24, 2011, Freeport-Baldwin Leader
Freeport school board releases 2011-12 budget
An increase of 2.39% is presented to the community.
The Freeport School District released a proposed expenditure budget of $149,787,547, an increase of $3,501,520 or 2.39 percent, at its February 16 meeting at Giblyn School.
After presenting a musical performance by the Giblyn Chorus and an unsung hero award to Bill Gullick, Superintendent Dr. Kishore Kuncham than prepared the room for the difficult news by showing the same video clip as at a previous meeting – two circus contortionists getting into and out of a very small box. For those not having seen it, it symbolized all the difficulties incumbent on this budget:
Losses in state aid – $1.5 billion statewide, plus $1.3 billion stimulus aid, translates to a loss for Freeport reported at $6.9 million or 11.9%, with an expected loss of $5 million or 9%, numbers that could result in a tax levy increase of 6.4%. Foundation aid has also been frozen for two more years.
On the expenditure side, the chief increases are in salaries, benefits, health care and pension expenses. Special ed expenses, an increase of the tuition costs for those local students attending charter schools, as well as the advent of the Nassau county sewage fee, will cost money as well for the district.
In order to present the 2.39% increase, the board has cut $1.6 million before presenting the budget. This will come from reductions in textbooks, professional development, and a possible reduction of 26 positions, a large portion resulting from a “restructuring of the district's pre-K program. This brought an impassioned comment from pre-K staffer John Schreiber, who outlined the program’s history and warned the district against replacing this important resource with less experienced teachers. Dr. Kuncham responded that while he understood, he had to “look at the whole district.”
In summary, the budget was divided as usual into administrative, program and capital components. Administrative is $17,223,766, up $498,785, or 3%; program, $166,928,375, up $2,382,549, or 2.1%; capital, $15,835,406, up $620,186, or 4.1%.
Each component part will be dissected in further detail in March board meetings. In addition to the board, school budget and library budget, a further proposition will be on the May 17 ballot: capital reserve fund expenditures of $1.5 million for parking field, sidewalk and lavatory work at Bayview, lavatory and playground refurbishment at Giblyn, boiler work at Atkinson and HVAC upgrades at the high school.
A large portion of Dr. Kuncham's talk concerned the difficulties posed by the proposed property tax cap, which has been approved by the state Senate and is pending in the Assembly.
If approved it would go into effect for the 2012-13 school year, and place a 2% cap on property tax levies, a cap that could only be exceeded with a 60% vote. Unlike the current contingency cap, which is on expenditures, a cap on the allowable levy increase would result in sizeable deficits for many districts, Dr. Kuncham said.
According to figures supplied by the New York State School Boards Association, over the next four years districts statewide would be allowed an average increase of $229 million per year for the next four years, in which time personnel expenses are expected to go up $1.044 billion per year, a deficit of $815 million per year.
For Freeport, this, coupled with state aid losses, could result in a $5 million reduction in services. For this reason, although Dr. Kuncham noted the district will use a large portion of its fund balance to reduce the tax levy, such tactics should be used with caution, since the fiscal picture could be as bad, if not worse, in future years.
In other matters, the board:
- authorized the district’s attorneys, Ingerman Smith, LLP to work co-operatively with other school districts in commencing legal action against Nassau County with regard to the sewer tax.
- Appointed Cullen and Danowski as the district’s external auditor.
- Authorized the implementation of the 21st Century Learning through Technology Initiative program at a cost of $348,033, to be accomplished through existing 2010-11 funds.
- Granted tenure to two teaching assistants and two administrators.
- Approved salary increase of between 1-2 percent per year over four years for six confidential employees (district employees not part of the bargaining unit).
- The next school board meeting will be Wednesday, March 2, at Atkinson.
