Finance Committee Meeting -- Proposed Budget

[Jeanette_Smith]

I am going to do my best to summarize the $8.6 M in cuts the administration offered to the finance committee last night and that the BOE will review on Wednesday. The presentation was very quick and it was very difficult to get all the numbers down before they moved onto the next slide so the numbers are rounded and the best I could do since they did not have copies of the presentation for the public.

Proposed Additional Sources of Revenue:

Potential income from the Southard building budgeted $300,000 revenue

Increased Saturday facility use fees (indoor programs requiring custodial services) = projected revenue $45,000 and $80,000.

These two sources of revenue reduced the amount of cuts below.

Proposed cuts:

Eliminate scheduled capital improvement projects (roofing work...) from next year's budget = $1,667,000
 
Reduce general classroom supplies by 40% = $500,000

Eliminate 8th grade outdoor graduation ceremony at all 3 middle schools = $40,000
 
Eliminate 8 administrative positions = $898,538  
(I am not entirely clear on this one but I think it is 4 elementary VP's and 2 middle school VP's plus the VP of Athletics/Extra-curricular. Remaining elementary VP's will share duties between two schools. I'm not sure how the 8th position was calculated since this only gives me 7.)
 
Eliminate 15 buildings and grounds positions = $585,949 by using a Monday to Friday schedule instead of a Tuesday to Saturday schedule.
 
Eliminate non-hazardous route courtesy busing = $200,000
 
Eliminate 2 nurses and 1 itinerant nurse (floating nurse) = $204,582.
(There will continue to be a certificated school nurse in every school, only now there will only be 1 at each middle school and one rotating nurse.)
 
Eliminate 4 media specialists and 4 media assistants positions = $685,766
(remaining media staff will rotate buildings)  

Eliminate 4 computer teacher positions = $294,084
 
Eliminate 6.5 guidance counselors and 2 substance awareness coordinators = $674,473
 
Eliminate 3 child study team members = $178,216
 
Eliminate instrumental music (4 positions) in the elementary schools = $281,804
 
Eliminate 10 paraprofessional aides in special education = $466,248
 
Eliminate Family/Consumer Sciences ("home ec") (3 positions) in the middle schools = $332,000
 
Eliminate all after school sports/clubs = $364,155
(May be replaced with a subscription (parent-paid) program)
 
Eliminate after school busing = $82,000
 
Eliminate 17 classroom instructional positions by increasing class size = $1,166,988.
(Changes to class sizes are K-2 = 25; 3-5 = 27 and 6-8 = 29.)
 
Insurance savings = $410,940
(Change in coverage offered to part-time employees, reduction of workforce and by talking with the unions about eliminating double coverage of families when both spouses are employed in the district.)

Since public schools are not covered under the state unemployment insurance program, this reduction in workforce will result in $969,927 in payouts for unemployment coverage.
 
 
When all is said and done there will still be a budget increase anyway. Ron Sanasac said that the K-8 portion of your tax would increase by 2.3 cents per $100 of assessed value.

[Al_Miller]

Jeanette I think the 8th Admistrator position was by not filling Ron Sanasac old position.

[Pat Garaffa]

Wow!  Thats a lot of cuts!  

Get rid of the summer maintenance guys and let the faculty and administrators paint the facility and cut the lawns.   LOL!  

I like most of it and it's a long overdue wake-up call.  I hate to see anyone loosing a job and hopefully the impact will be tolerable and our faculty will quickly find new employment.  We are all in this mess together and no one is immune.    

But I'm glad to see some trade-offs and they didn't just attack the kids and their programs.  For once we are all in the same boat.    

Some of the courtesy busing is a joke.  There is a bus stop on the corner of Newbury and Darien Road.  The school is visible from that corner and is less than a 5 minute walk.    

I had a friend who's yard backed up to Taunton School.  He had a gate in his yard that opened onto the school property yet his kid still had a seat on the bus.  

I think they can find some other areas too and maybe leave a few of these in place.  A 40k graduation ceremony for 1500 kids doesn't seem unreasonable to me.   Especially since they lost everything else.  But where does the 40K go to when everyone is already on staff?  And why does it cost $27 to graduate?  Don't we pay for the caps and gowns ourselves? 

Next years back to school list:

Pencils
Paper
Notebooks (no trapper keepers!)
Food and healthcare for teachers
1 Ceiling tile
A desk
3 yards of carpet.
Wood or coal for the fireplace.......  

[Michele_bell]

Does anyone know what the distance from the schools is for courtesy busing?  I have heard a few numbers floated around, 2 miles as the crow flies; 2.5 miles via road distance etc.  Also where can one find a list of hazardous routes? I know some Aldrich parents are concerned about Church Road.

[Michele_bell]

Hey Pat...too funny. Don't forget:
chalk
erasers
ink & toner cartridges
floor polish
ream of printer paper
light bulbs

[Pat Garaffa]

I think the standard answer has to do with the location of sidewalks.  

If a home is 100 feet away and without sidewalks then it may be considered hazardous.  But if a home is a mile away, and can be walked on sidewalks and slow roads, then it's fine.  There is much more to that answer but I know it has more to do with sidewalks than distance.

At least it's not all uphill, in a blinding snowstorm, like when we were kids!  LOL!

[Al_Miller]

Michele last night they said under 2 miles will have to walk if there r sidewalks.

[Pat Garaffa]

And if the roof leaks from the rescheduled maintenance then we'll need umbrellas and some buckets too.  Look on the bright side - it's free water!  We can pour it in the toilets and save another 50 cents.  LOL!   

Abe Lincoln went to school in a crappy building.  He didn't have a "media specialist" and he turned out OK.  

[Michele_bell]

Sidewalks...Ha! Where we live we barely have a road!  Guess, that covers us and anyone along Church, Kent, Ford etc...  
Thanks. I had planned on attending last night, but horrible allergy attack hit during CCD and I never recovered....

[B. Sandow]

Jeanette, thank you for your intense study and detail of the ongoings at our schools.  Please keep up the great work!  I cannot wait to congratulate you on becoming one of our newest school board members after the April 20th election.
My wife and I couldn't get to last night's finance committee meeting before the board presented their slide show on the projected budget for next year.  I did get to hear most of all the public's comments during the meeting.  What I left with was the Superintendent was "thinking" of making a formal request to the union to please sit down and lets discuss ways to prevent projected massive layoffs of teachers and non teacher positions due to the terrible economy and NJ's current fiscal crisis.  I also herd board member Tim O'Brien ask detailed questions to Mr. Sanasac on cost saving ideas of employee health care and salary freeze for a year.  After quick number crunching it turns out that if each school employee kept their salary level the same next year (not a decrease in pay but the same pay next year) and contributed "a couple of hundred" dollars each month toward their healthcare cost then the budget would not be increased, taxes would not be increased, NO teacher layoffs would occur, no reorganizing of teachers in each and every school in the district, no after school changes, no busing changes and no nothing changes WHAT WE WOULD ACHIEVE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DISRUPTION TO OUR CHILDREN!  And we all know its all about the children. 
I can only hope the union sees they have a tremendous ability to make right with the people of Howell by agreeing to sit down and negotiate a better way of life for their members and the people of Howell. Their decision could also  show the rest of NJ how GREAT this town really is.  I look forward to Wednesday night's board meeting.

[Pat Garaffa]

Just an additional cynical thought about my Abe Lincoln comments.  

We have all these positions available yet we continue to turn out kids that are returning less and less to society each year.  We have financial crisis because no one knows how to avoid debt or balance a checkbook.   A large majority of bankrupt people are those in college.  What did they learn?  And why aren’t these important moral issues being addressed?  

We have media specialists, school nurses, assistant school nurses, aides, principals, vice principals, family counselors, computer teachers, substance abuse counselors, cops on staff and roaming the hallways, guidance counselors, family crisis counselors, child study teams, therapists, etc.  

How many families are “in crisis” because they can’t afford the taxes or mortgage?  Get rid of the “crisis” and the crisis counselors can be minimized too.  

We even have paraprofessional aides.  What are they and what do they do?  (No attacks please – just a simple question.)  

I'm not knocking anyone’s job and I am confident that all of these programs and positions were necessary and have helped our kids.  And many probably continue to do so and the impact of their loss will be much greater for some kids than others.  

But are we using these resources to empower our kids?  Or are we using these resources to maintain our status quo?  Are they beneficial or do their salaries kill us and keep us on this financial treadmill?    

When was the last time we used all these resources and turned out a Thomas Jefferson?  Or a Ben Franklin?  Or a Thomas Edison?   We have 100 times the tools now yet we produce less and less each year and we continue to slide backwards.  Sometimes I think it makes sense and other times I think it’s a snow job.  Just more smoke and mirrors.  

Lets save the bucks, lower the taxes and let Mom stay home after school instead of being forced back into the workforce.  We have latch-key kids watching TV, getting fatter and playing on Facebook when we could be doing much better.  Instead of being home, we roll every available dollar into the schools and we expect them to do our job for us.  It makes no sense and it’s not working!   No one will care more than you and this tremendous effort has produced little or nothing in return for the majority of us.  

Lets go back to the one room schoolhouse and pump out a few more Jefferson’s, Franklin’s and Lincolns.   They didn’t have a “crisis counselor” and they turned out pretty good.  

And maybe they can fix this mess?

[Pat Garaffa]

"After quick number crunching it turns out that if each school employee kept their salary level the same next year (not a decrease in pay but the same pay next year) and contributed "a couple of hundred" dollars each month toward their healthcare cost then the budget would not be increased, taxes would not be increased, NO teacher layoffs would occur, no reorganizing of teachers in each and every school in the district, no after school changes, no busing changes and no nothing changes"

We have ALL been there in our own jobs so why not the public teachers and cops too?   Inflation is essentially at zero so why is a big raise justified?  Especially in this economy? 

I bet that nearly every teacher would jump on board with these minor changes.  If the union fights this then that is just indicative of their greed and it is probably not reflective of the actual teachers concern or opinions.

[Jeanette_Smith]

Does anyone know what the distance from the schools is for courtesy busing?  I have heard a few numbers floated around, 2 miles as the crow flies; 2.5 miles via road distance etc.  Also where can one find a list of hazardous routes? I know some Aldrich parents are concerned about Church Road.

My understanding of "non-hazardous courtesy busing" is that it applies to students that live within two miles of school and will only walk on neighborhood roads with sidewalks to schools.

[Phil_Sanfilippo]

Good report, however not far enough, the taxpayers do not need any increase. I suggest closing one more school, open up contracts and require paying into health insurance and pension, in addition a freeze on all salaries.
           phil

[Rob_Nicastro]

Phil,

You make some good points. There are two numbers we should be concerned with 85 and 15. Salaries and benefits account for 85 percent of the budget and 15 percent account for everything else. We keep cutting from the 15. Next year we will not be able to cut sports and clubs, courtesy bussing, outdoor graduation ceremonies, free Saturday use of the facilities etc, etc.  Sooner or later the ability to cut from the 15 percent will no longer be feasible. The 85 percent will have to come into play. Contract renegotiations are inevitable unless you want to lose so many teachers that the quality of education really suffers. If we wait until the final hour to look at the 85 percent the resulting cuts could be steep and drastic. Why not look at it now and make the pain less and spread it over time and a larger group so that jobs can be saved. The old saying is you can pay me now or pay me later. It always costs more and hurts more when you pay later.