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Haldane BOE Listens to Four Budget Presentations
Big jump in fuel cost nearly doubles proposed budget for transportation
by Allison Dunne
Haldane Central School District's Board of Education heard four budget presentations at its March 7, 2006 meeting: transportation; maintenance and operations; debt service; and benefits. School Business Official Meryl Rubinstein presented the four budget proposals, giving separate figures for maintenance and operations.
The proposed 2006-2007 budget for transportation would increase more than 46% from the 2005-2006 budget. Rubinstein says of the $186,655 proposed, $63,000 is allotted for fuel, a number she cites as conservative, and which accounts for the cost of diesel fuel at about $2.03 per gallon, and gasoline at $2 per gallon. The 2005-2006 budget included $30,000 for the cost of fuel, but the actual expenditure is projected to reach $62,000.
The transportation proposal also calls for the replacement of three vehicles two cars and a leased van with three passenger vans, because small vans, said Rubinstein, hold more students than cars and afford the district greater flexibility. BOE Trustee David Merandy said he is not convinced vans are the way to go, while Rubinstein pointed out that the prices for cars versus vans are comparable. Still, Merandy was not persuaded. BOE Vice President Michael Junjulas asked Rubinstein to put together price comparisons for vans versus cars.
The proposed transportation budget also includes a 12 percent increase for bus insurance.
The proposed 2006-2007 operations budget represents a nearly 20 percent increase from the previous year. New to this budget proposal is $1,500 for asbestos certification for one person. BOE members asked Rubinstein to find out just what this certification allows a person to do.
As for maintenance, the proposed 2006-2007 budget calls for a more than 75 percent increase from the previous year. The more than $100,000 increase, says Rubinstein, is in large part because the 2005-2006 budget secured $126,750 from the endowment or from gifts, to help offset the tax rate.
The proposed maintenance budget does not include $51,500 in pump room and boiler repairs in anticipation of a capital project to address these needs, says Rubinstein. The budget does include $29,100 for an equipment wish list, including $17,900 for a Kubota tractor with a backhoe.
The proposed maintenance budget also includes $18,000 for the five-year facility plan, which is a map guiding capital improvement projects.
The proposed budget also lists the rental of a modular classroom at $20,000, something in need of further research, with Haldane Superintendent Dr. John Di Natale suggesting borrowing the money from the endowment, and replacing the funds, say, via a capital reserve fund.
The 2006-2007 budget proposal for debt service - the longand short-term borrowings of the district that must be paid back - represent a more than 3% increase from the previous year, a proposed $40,910.
The fourth and final budget proposal presented during the meeting was for benefits, and came in at $170,506, a more than 9% increase. Rubinstein pointed out that increases here stem from a 6% hike in health insurance rates; a 21% increase in Medicare reimbursement, and a 10% rise in welfare fund costs. In other business, BOE Vice President Junjulas called into question February's budget transfers. "My main concern is recovering the fuel cost item," he said.
"I'm just appalled, I'm blindsided by it," said Junjulas of the $80,000 School Business Official Rubinstein said has been projected for the remainder of the year to cover fuel costs.
"I just find this irresponsible. We approved so much stuff this year. If I had known we had an $80,000 deficit for fuel at this time, I wouldn't have approved a thing," said Junjulas. He said he objected to cutting into funds related to instruction to cover the cost of fuel, rather than cutting additional field trips, for example.
Superintendent Di Natale responded to Junjulas, noting that spending had been halted to make up the difference in fuel costs.
Rubinstein pointed out that in October 2005, she came to the BOE with her concerns about additional money needed for heating and fuel oil. Since that time, administrators did decide to cut some field trips as one way to help cover the fuel costs.
Merandy said he generally agreed with Junjulas' concerns. Di Natale said that back in October, much time was spent deliberating whether to go ahead with a $10,000 senior trip to Disneyworld, saying there was, in fact, a decision made to keep certain field trips. Junjulas wondered why Haldane was not following other school districts in canceling all field trips. BOE Trustee Katherine Marino told Di Natale that he did not make clear nearly six months ago the link between cutting field trips to help pay for fuel, and Trustee Merandy agreed with Marino.
"Oh, I think it was made very clear back in October that we were going to be in a shortfall, and Meryl (Rubinstein) kept repeating it....There are a lot of things that I think I would have held off on in terms of buying until we knew where we were going to be with fuel. The reality was we knew we were going to be in a shortfall. We just kept spending money," Di Natale said.
In other Board business, Curto continued discussions about the five-year facility plan. All Board members voted in favor of adopting the plan, as prepared January 26, 2006. Curto then reported that he had met with Joe Patterson, of Clark Patterson Associates, about the timeline and procedure should the Board wants to go to the public with a referendum to fund capital improvement projects. After Curto recounted to Board members the process, all Board members voted in favor of hiring Clark Patterson Associate (CPA) for up to $30,000 for CPA's two-week process of coming to Haldane to assess and price various projects. The Board approved that the money to pay CPA could be taken from the endowment to later be paid back to the school district, as such funds would be tacked on to the cost of the project(s) in a referendum.
Given the timeline to get to a referendum, Board members realized that even with a "yes" vote on a potential June referendum, work might not begin until the 2006-2007 school year. Therefore, they said, it could take one year to fix/replace boilers that have been causing major heating problems for the district.
Also during the meeting, Superintendent Di Natale defended his decision to open school one day in early March despite snowy conditions. Junjulas said some district residents thought it was too snowy to open school, a day which resulted in early dismissals. "My decision to stay open had nothing to do with snow days," said Di Natale, who said he received an e-mail from a parent who accused Di Natale of opening Haldane to prevent losing another vacation day. Di Natale said his decision was based on weather forecasts.
Also during the meeting, Di Natale presented the Board with a resolution on education tax credits, with the recommendation that the BOE approve the resolution to be signed by all Board members, the superintendent, and the district clerk. The resolution states that the New York State legislature is considering legislation to create an education tax credit for parents including those whose children attend private or parochial schools, and that such education tax credits would siphon hundreds of millions of public dollars from public education.
Curto said it would make sense to postpone a vote on the resolution, re-read the resolution, and discuss it at the next BOE meeting.
All Board members were in favor of four policy amendments. They have to do with Children with Disabilities; Parent Involvement for Children with Disabilities: Impartial Due Process Hearings/Selection of Impartial Hearing Officers; and Special Education Mediation.
However, the Board decided to wait on approving a District Wellness Policy. Di Natale said, by law, the policy must be in place by July. He said it was worth waiting to approve the policy because superintendents from 18 other school districts are reviewing it, and the policy could change. He said the policy contains the least restrictive wording allowed.
The next meeting of the Haldane BOE was scheduled for Wednesday, March 15.
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