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MONTROSE, N.Y. – Although details on where Hendrick Hudson School District will find $2.6 million in savings are unclear, school board members seem to agree the cuts will come from the district’s staff.
“The only way to make meaningful cuts is in staff,” said Marion Walsh, Hendrick Hudson Board of Education President. She pointed out that staff does not necessarily mean teachers. “Everything is on the table at this point.”
The district is hoping to find significant savings through collective bargaining agreements and is negotiating with four of the five unions that represent district employees. Superintendent Daniel McCann said that with current contracts, $2.6 million in savings is the equivalent of laying off 15 teachers.
“Obviously, we want to keep the services intact,” said Mary-Pat Briggi, school board member. She said she didn’t see where else the cuts could come from, and that labor accounts for a majority of the district’s budget.
“We’re in a very difficult position with the tax cap, without the reforms that have been promised,” said Walsh about mandate relief promises from Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Throughout the budgeting process, most budgets presented to the board were higher than the previous year, or have been cut from a roll over budget. Roll over budgets assume the budget will remain the same, and add contractual increases to present a starting point for budgeting.
The administrative budget, for example, was increased by $66,301 from the 2011-2012 year, the proposed technology budget increased by $19,222 from year-to-year and the athletic budget was reduced by $25,235 year-to-year. Other cuts have come from substitute teacher pay, reducing pay by 10 percent saved the district about $40,000. Substitute teachers in Hendrick Hudson School District now make $72 per day, instead of $80.
The debt and benefits budget was increased by a little over $1 million, a 6.2 percent increase. The 2011-2012 debt and benefits budget was $17.1 million, the proposed 2012-2013 budget is $18.1 million. The total of increases in proposed budgets presented to the board is $1,118,240.
The next meeting of the Hendrick Hudson Board of Education is March 14, at 7:30 p.m.
Comments (5)
I think two words can sum it up: CAN MCCANN!
QB1, to compare a public school teacher to an employee of Pepsi or IBM just isn't fair. For one thing employees of publicly traded companies are eligible for stock options and often make much higher salaries. In addition, most teachers work longer days than what is agreed upon in their contracts. I have volunteered to assist the district on a variety of strategic planning iniatives I an can assure you I see many staff working late into the night. It's easy and convenient to knock the salary of a superintendent but they too work the hours of a CEO on call 24/7 and work most Saturdays a d Sundays. Yes they get paid well but compare their salary to an exec at Pepsi or IBM who works comparable hours and you will be see the superintendents make far less. There is an argument for asking all involved parties to cut a bit -only fair in this economic climate but be fair in your assessment for why the problem exists and look at all sides of the equation. Again, consider the long term earning potential of a teacher and compare it to other professional fields that require a graduate degree and you will find that the educators have hard limits to their life time earnings-less than in other areas, law, finance, accounting, etc. I would like to add that I am not a teacher but value the importance of investing in public education- the great equalizer. If you want to continue to give wealthy kids who attend private schools the upper hand in life then just keep cutting from public education. Wouldn't it be nice to give middle class and lower income families the chance to have their kids compete with the wealthy?
Your response, albeit thoughtful, is one that would be expected from someone who works on the education side. You may not be a teacher but you are embedded in the culture. I have no doubt that there are many teachers and affiliated staff that put in long hours and maybe even weekends, but so do many employed in the private sector and, contrary to what you may think, most employees of publicly traded companies don't get stock options or earn much higher salaries. They also pay a substantial percentage of their salary for healthcare, they don't get pensions,and most can't retire before they are 70, plus they do not have job security and can lose their jobs at any time for any reason. It happens every day across the country.
All that being said, I too value the importance of investing in public education. My entire middle class family are products of public education and we consider ourselves successful. We worked very hard to earn our success.
Today, the U.S. spends more per child on public education than ever before, yet our performance is below that of many countries around the world. That may be the reason that those who can afford to send their children to private schools do so.
If we really care about pubic education being the great equalizer, then we best take a good hard look at where all that taxpayer money is going, how it's being spent, and why it has yet to make that much of a difference to those middle and lower income families. I certainly wish it would. would.
If you want to cut staff to save money, start with the teachers who were dealing/smoking pot!! That should be around 400k right there.
The problem in a nutshell is that there are 5 different unions representing HH employees - "labor accounts for a majority of the district's budget". If laying off 15 teachers saves the $ 2.6 million then lay them off. That's what corporate America does every day. Pepsi and IBM have just had layoffs, and workers in the private sector deal with layoffs and job uncertainty every day. They don't have pensions and free healthcare and tenure to protect their jobs, and they work far more hours than teachers. Layoffs are never good, but it's the reality that most Americans in the private sector have dealt with for years.
HH can begin cutting from the top down. Start with our overpaid Superintendent, and do we really need a district spokesperson? Isn't that something our Superintendent can handle?
The board has now begun posturing that the tax cap is the problem. It has become the mantra of every school district. The unions will offer little to no concessions and the school boards are too afraid to take a hard line, so they back down and the community falls in line, overrides the tax cap, taxes go up and nothing changes.