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General News: Board of Ed Studies Potential Budget Cuts
March 17, 2011
By Charlie B. Scirbona
As the Cornwall Board of Education grappled with how to keep the property tax lien low in next year’s school budget, members studied a list of possible cuts to the $59.57 million preliminary budget.
At its Monday work session, assistant superintendent for business Harvey Sotland, presented a list of potential cuts to consider in almost every area of the budget that would total $3 million. The cuts ranged from producing report cards in-house, with a savings of $24,960, to cutting one section of kindergarten, fifth and sixth grades, which would eliminate teaching positions and one teaching assistant position at a savings of $260,833.
The list was compiled for the board to show the possible options for bringing down the proposed tax levy increase of 8.57 percent projected in this year’s budget overview.
The board members spent most of Monday’s meeting discussing the impacts of the possible cuts. While there were no solid decisions made, the board seemed to agree to work toward bringing the tax levy down to at least 6.61 percent. This would require a cut of $760,000. Several members felt that they would rather see larger class sizes than take away from the district’s programs.
The list of $3 million in possible cuts also included more drastic moves, such as the total elimination of modified sports, the elimination of all after-school activities, postponement of band and orchestra until sixth grade, and returning kindergarten to half-day sessions.
While these cuts would bring the biggest savings – cutting back to half-day kindergarten alone would save more than $400,000 -- the board agreed with District Superintendent Timothy Rehm that these options are nearly unthinkable.
Rehm shared expectation of a bit of relief in the gloomy budget picture at the School Budget Advisory Committee meeting on Wednesday. Rehm reported to the committee that both the New York state Senate and Assembly had put out their versions of the state budget that included minor restorations to school aid.
The state senate’s proposed budget would restore $265 million in state aid while the assembly’s proposal would $467 million.
The committee heard the same report on potential cuts as the board, however many of the committee members wanted the district to look into asking its various unions to reopen salary negotiations to see if any of the unions would forgo contractual salary increases.
According to the budget overview, the salary increases amount to $998,239. By asking for the unions to forgo a raise this year would bring the tax levy lower than the board’s aim of 6.61 percent
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