newburghedinfo

Staff totals for each building in the Newburgh School District are available at this link. It would be interesting to see total administrative staff as well, but there does not appear to be a web page for that.

The third budget meeting was on February 18. There were two significant decisions. Summer school offerings were reduced. There is to be no elementary program; only programs targeted to students needing specific requirements in order to be admitted to ninth grade or to graduate. Secondly, full day Pre-K was eliminated for next year. These decisions are contingent upon the budget being finalized and approved by the Board. Click through for meeting notes.

Wednesday February 17, 2010 there was a Newburgh School District BOE Workshop meeting in the Library conference room at 7pm (the workshop was rescheduled from Tuesday due to snow). Here are meeting notes.

The Utica Observer-Dispatch reported March 2 that unions in the Rome City School District are voluntarily meeting with district administration to work on budget challenges together.

Faced with deep cuts, Rome revisits union contracts
By REBECCA CRONISER

Three of six unions in the Rome City School District have agreed to reopen labor contracts to help the district reduce the number of cuts to programs and positions next year.

"We all recognize that public employees can no longer be immune from economic conditions that employees in the private industry have been hit with," Superintendent Jeffrey Simons said. "We're hoping we can revisit the contracts to see what we can do to protect programs and save what jobs we can."

Neither Simons nor union officials would talk about what would be on the table during the negotiations. The three unions coming back to the bargaining table are the teachers, administrators and custodians.

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"We want to see if there might be something available to both sides that might be mutually beneficial," Rome Teachers Association President Gene Terenzetti said.

The school district has a $6.8 million gap in its preliminary budget for the 2010-11 school year, Simons said. The governor's proposed cut in state aid makes up about $2.8 million of that while contractual and operational cost increases make up the rest.

If the governor's proposed budget is passed, Simons said the district will be forced to either cut 75 employees or impose a double digit tax increase on residents.

"The hope is that working together we can come up with a solution that might help us in this crisis," school board President Patricia Riedel said.

Terenzetti said the reason his union is reopening negotiations is because of "mutual respect" between teachers and administrators.

"It can only work with mutual respect," he said.

Senior administrators who have individual contracts, including Simons, have already agreed to forgo contractual raises for the next school year.

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These committees advise the Newburgh School District Administration and Board of Education about how school buildings should be allocated. The meetings of these committees do not seem to be announced the way that public meetings should be according to New York State Open Meetings Law.

These committees discuss quite important matters. At the meeting on February 8 there was a "saying of yes or no" at which all the committee members save one supported the reconfiguration of grades so that the k-6 elementary schools would become k-5 and Heritage and South Junior would become 6-8 schools in the 2011-2012 school year.

Click through for the detailed notes.

Corrections or clarifications are welcome as comments or via e-mail to newburghedinfo@gmail.com.

The Times Herald-Record reports that in the Valley Central School District parents and community members received printed information about proposed cuts, and parents and eductors were asked to help prioritize them.

Valley Central parents asked to prioritize
By Meghan E. Murphy
Times Herald-Record
Posted: March 02, 2010 - 2:00 AM

MONTGOMERY -- Parents and community members got a list they've been waiting for Monday that detailed possible cuts to Valley Central schools.

The district needs to find about $5.2 million in savings to compensate for state aid reductions and contractual budget increases. The district already held meetings in Maybrook to inform parents about the possibility of closing the community school or restructuring elementary schools, which could save about $1.6 million.
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The six-page list included more cuts than the district needs to make but Hooley asked parents to prioritize. In a roundtable, educators and parents listed things they want to keep: full-day kindergarten, small class sizes, middle school teachers and a balance of extra-curricular activities such as music.
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The Watertown Daily Times reports that New York State Schools will be working with a much more restrictive contingency budget cap this year. It will not allow for 3 or 4 percent growth as it did in recent years...

Contingency budgets face stark limits for 2010-11
By Jamie Munks
Thursday, February 25, 2010

Public school officials warn voters every year that if they vote down the budget, a contingency budget will be adopted that could eliminate or reduce equipment purchases and free community use of buildings.

But the warnings usually are hollow: the state's formula for school budgets --using the U.S. Consumer Price Index -- has in the past allowed contingency budgets to almost mirror defeated budgets because the index has risen most years.

Not this year. The index declined from 3.8 percent in 2008 to minus 0.4 percent in 2009. That means contingency budget constraints will be tighter than usual, and school districts will have to face making reductions in programs, staffing and equipment purchases if budgets are defeated.

"This is the first time in a long time that the CPI has been a negative number or zero; it's always been a little bit of an increase year to year," said Barbara O. Greene, director of finance for the Jefferson-Lewis Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

"It will become challenging for schools."
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For additional details on how the contingency cap is based on the CPI see this post at the EdVANTAGE Blog.

This situation was anticipated by Governor Paterson. The 2010-2011 Executive Budget Briefing Book proposed preventing the cap from being less than the previous year's spending:

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Contingency Budget Calculation. This proposal would prevent mandatory negative spending growth for school districts that are operating under a contingency budget by limiting the spending cap calculation to no less than the previous year's spending levels. The current statutory provisions for the calculation of the contingency budget cap does not account for a period of deflation, which may apply to the 2009 calendar year.
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The Mid Hudson Times has a slick new website.

Here's an article from February about the Newburgh City Council not deciding whether or not to accept the Newburgh School District's offer to pay a substantial part of the cost of officers stationed in schools.

February 11th, 2010

The City of Newburgh -- strapped for cash and saddled with violent crime -- is choosing to play hard to get with the Newburgh Enlarged School District that has offered to pay the cost of three police officers who provide on-site protection at the district's three largest schools.
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On Monday night, Herbek urged the council to accept Dr. Saturnelli's offer, saying that she has generously offered to guarantee the City that the district would pay a second year of the cost of police coverage for the three officers (another $234,679.50).

In neighboring areas, school districts provide their own security. The Wallkill School District uses paid security guards; Pine Bush has school resource officers (SRO) and Valley Central School District uses hall monitors who have had discipline training.
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Rather than accept the financial support as offered, the City Council Monday night voted 3-2 to table the resolution. Council members Marge Bell, Christine Bello and Curlie Dillard voted to table; Mayor Nick Valentine and Deputy Mayor Regina Angelo opposed the table motion.
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At around 6:30pm Sunday Feb 28, the Newburgh School District sent a robo-call notification that: "There will be no school tomorrow, on Monday March 1, 2010 in the Newburgh Enlarged City School District due to power outages and transportation problems."

This information (as well as how to add or remove a telephone number to the robo-call list) ought to be at the Newburgh School District's offical website.

The second budget meeting was on February 4. I missed most of these meeting, so just have a few notes from this one. Click through for meager notes.