Board Trims Almost $1.4 mm from Proposed Scarsdale Schools Budget

Like Cinderella, the Board of Education had just a few hours to meet a midnight deadline when they convened on Monday night, June 3. After their first proposed budget for 2013-14 met a resounding defeat on May 21, the Board was charged with reformulating a reduced budget that would meet with critics' approval and continue to fund Scarsdale's educational program. By law, the new budget had to be submitted by midnight June 3 for a second community vote on June 18.

Before they got to work on making cuts, Dr. McGill offered some background on the district's health reserve fund that had come into question by some who said that it was illegal to hold additional funds in reserve beyond the 4% designated by the state. He explained that since Scarsdale has a self-insured health plan, the reserve was in place to "smooth out financing year over year." According to McGill the existence of the reserve had not been questioned until a 2011 audit and the NYS Comptroller is aware that Scarsdale has the fund. He explained that new legislation could be proposed to legalize it and said that at the end of this year the fund would contain about $1 million. A 6% increase in the fund is budgeted for next year.

The Board also asked Assistant Superintendent Joan Weber for a projection on next year's elementary school enrollment. The current 2013-14 budget allowed for 105 elementary school classes, the same count as this year. The demographer projected that the district would need 105 sections in 2013-14 though more accurate accounts will be available in August.

At the May 29 meeting the Board had agreed to drop the proposal for the Wellness Center and to agree to a budget below the tax cap. Armed with a list of proposed cuts from Dr. McGill, the Board went to work weighing and debating the merits of each.

When considering what to cut, Board President Liz Guggenheimer suggested the following:

- Not to make too many cuts that would unfairly impact one group
- To give preference to cuts that could be reversed if circumstances change
- To consider the nuts and bolts and facilities

Linda Purvis let the Board know that $250,000 in funds from the special education budget from 2012-13 had not been spent and would be available to reduce the 2013-14 budget. That $250,000 in addition to another $100,000 to be taken from undesignated reserves brought the Board about halfway toward their goal of reducing the budget by approximately $702,000 to meet the cap. Due to renegotiation of the life insurance policy, another reduction of $136,500 in premium expenses was also available.

The Board agreed that the drama teacher, who was to be increased to full-time, remain at a .6 allocation, saving another $40,000.

However, the decision to retain or cut a new position in the tech department for a district network administrator required more discussion. The tech department had originally asked for four new positions in response to a mandate for district wide online testing by 2014-15 as well as the implementation of mobile devices for all students in the district. In addition, the district is rolling out wi-fi in all seven schools this coming year. Staff was needed to move these initiatives forward and to provide tech support and instruction to both teachers and students. The current budget was down from four to two new slots, and the district network administrator at $100,000 was on the table. Technology Director Jerry Crisci said that the network person would be in charge of wireless networks, mobile initiatives, server consolidation, and making efficiencies to reduce the energy cost of the servers and integrate cloud-based services.

Sunil Subbakrishna asked if the wi-fi rollout was at risk if the person was not hired and Crisci said we would move forward either way. However, he cautioned that the new person was needed to ensure a smooth implementation. Mary Beth Gose asked if the function could be managed with independent consultants. Ultimately the Board decided to wait until later in the meeting to decide on this position.

The board debated the need for the helping teacher for English language arts and Lynn Shain explained that reading and writing is the centerpiece of elementary education. The ELA helping teacher is there to enhance teachers' repertoire of matching instruction to individual learning styles and to give one on one support to elementary school teachers. The position had been eliminated three years ago and she saw a need to reinstitute it.

Conversation then turned to the $90,000 budget allocation for the Center for Innovation. Lynn Shain told the group that the center had "unleashed positive energy among faculty and the community" and reported that this year five speakers were invited to Scarsdale as part of the initiative. Eight funded projects are currently being implemented. It was hoped that in the future the Center would bring together students, faculty and community members to develop new products and solutions. Board member Jonathan Lewis spoke in favor of the Center, calling it "transformative" and likening it to the research and development investments in the private sector. Despite his enthusiasm, the Board decided to cut $90,000 in total from the Districts $1.1mm research budget, but to use $25,000 of that budget to continue to fund the Center for Innovation in a limited manner.

As the hour grew late, the Board moved more quickly through additional items on the list. Here are their decisions:

Cut $160,000 for asbestos abatement and boiler pads for the high school from the buildings and grounds budget
Cut $25,000 for website upgrades
Keep $131,000 for security personnel at the Middle and High Schools
Cut $60,000 for a full time secretary to replace three aids in the athletics office though communications from this office has been a problem.
Keep the high school librarian at $100,000

After a five-minute break, the Board took comments from the community and then closed the loop on some final items.

They continued to debate how many teachers were needed to staff elementary school classes and discussed whether or not to include an unassigned teacher in the budget as well as the district helping teacher.

Ultimately, the Board decided against "unassigned" positions and voted to include funding for 105 elementary school sections and opted not to fund the helping teacher in the language arts area, a reduction of $200,000 for the two positions.

Finance Manager Jeff Martin then provided a final tally and here is what was proposed:

Total Budget: $143,899,713
Budget to Budget Increase: 1.49%
Tax Levy Increase: 2.84%
Budget Reduction from first proposed budget: $1,386,500

A second budget resolution was passed at 11:40 pm with twenty minutes to spare.

For a complete tally of the budget to budget changes, see below: