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The March regular BOE meeting was on Tuesday at the NFA main campus auditorium. There was an audience of perhaps 700 or so. The agenda items were covered very quickly. There were around a dozen public comments on budget topics. Public comment was limited to one hour, and the main topics were: Foreign language and music, Music programs, Teaching Assistants (4), Psychologists, Crew (5), Attendance personnel.

Click through for the March BOE meeting notes.

Click here for Video of the March 27, 2012 NECSD BOE meeting.

There is a regular meeting of the Newburgh School District Board of Education tonight at 7PM at the NFA Main Auditorium. The agenda is posted, additional details including details about HR items and tenure recommendations are in this additional "agenda items" document. It is a very positive step for these details to be available.

This is a Regular BOE meeting. So the Board will be following the agenda closely, and may not be discussing the 2012-13 budget very much at all. However, this meeting will also be one of the very few opportunities that the Board extends for public comment to be made to them on budget matters. There will probably be many speakers. Speakers, please be aware that at the Feb 28 meeting the BOE began strict enforcement of a five minute limit for public comments.

The handout that was made available at the beginning of the March 22 budget workshop is available here.

The handout summarizes the cuts and changes approved at the March 5 and March 15 meetings, and also the items that were discussed March 22. The only significant item that was not approved at the March 22 meeting was "Music - Elimination of Instrumental programs at elementary".

Video of the meeting is also available.

The Newburgh School District BOE met Tuesday evening, March 22. A brief Special meeting was followed by a Budget Workshop. The purpose of the Special meeting at 5:45 was for the BOE to vote to commence legal action against the Palombo group.
Budget recommendations approved at the Budget Workshop included:

• Eliminate Crew team
• Add back 2 Art positions at Middle schools
• Reduce Social Workers (-4 positions)
• Shift Special Education students to in-district placment (+28 positions, but still results in some savings)
• Reduce Elementary Teaching Assistants (-21 positions)
• Reduce Violence prevention coordinator (-1 position, currently vacant)
• Reduce Elementary Security Guards (-7 positions)

The proposal to eliminate elementary instrumental music (-6 positions) was "bubbled" for further consideration.

Per the NECSD Clerk of the Board:

A Special Meeting of the Board of Education has been scheduled for Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 5:45 pm in the Newburgh Free Academy Main Campus Auditorium, 201 Fullerton Avenue, Newburgh, NY.

The Budget Workshop Meeting scheduled for 6:00 p.m. will follow the Special Meeting.

Video of the March 15, 2012 Newburgh School District Board of Education Budget Workshop meeting is up: embedded player or at YouTube. Sorry about the video quality. Most of the audio is clear enough to follow the procedings.

2012-13 Budget Workshop meeting two

There was a Budget Workshop meeting of the Newburgh School District Board of Education on Monday March 15, 2012. The meeting was held in the NFA Auditorium. There were probably over 300 in the audience. There was noticeable attendance by Teaching Assistants and the Crew Team.

The following budget cuts/changes were approved:

• Reduce teachers on special assignment by 8.
• Reduce 20 (of 61) Teaching Assistant positions. These are the first grade positions.
• Eliminate a telephone operator position at NFA.
• Eliminate a transition specialist position.
• Reduce 2 physical education positions at NFA.
• Eliminate 1 photography position at NFA.
• Reduce one Assistant Principal [via retirement].
• Lease West Street School to BOCES -- reduce 1.5 positions.
• Schedule J reductions.
• Adjust Curriculum and Instruction changes: restore 3 directors; reduce 5 teachers on special assignment

The following items were not decided ("bubbled")

• Reduce 40 (of 61) Teaching Assistant positions. Kindergarten assistants.
• Eliminate instrumental music programs at elementary level. 6 positions.
• Eliminate a violence prevention coordinator position [currently vacant?].

Cutting the Crew team budget was rejected by the Board.

The budget gap stands at $5.8 million. The next Budget Workshop meeting will be Thursday March 22 at 6PM.

Click through for additional notes.

Please do let me know if any corrections are needed to the notes.

Per the District Clerk:

At the request of Mr. Pizzo, I am writing to inform everyone that the room location for the Budget Workshop Meeting scheduled for Thursday, March 15th at 6 pm has been changed to the NFA Main Campus – Auditorium instead of the South Cafeteria. In addition, the Workshop Meeting of March 20th and the Regular Meeting of March 27th both scheduled for 7 pm will be held in the NFA Main Campus – Auditorium instead of the BOE Auditorium.

Hi All,

I could use a little help at the Thursday 6-8PM Budget Workshop Meeting. Very simple stuff; if you have ever aimed a video camera you have the necessary skills. : ) Please send an email to newburghedinfo@gmail.com if you are planning to attend the meeting and could assist, and I'll provide more details. Thank you.

The THRecord continues to report on the basketball attendance issue from time to time. Around March 6 the BOE sent a letter to the Record. Here's a link to the related THRecord article and a copy of the text of the letter is here. The Record followed up on March 12 with a jeer "to the Newburgh School Board members for failing again to give the community the information it has requested."

Thursday March 6, 2012 there was a meeting of the Newburgh School District BOE Curriculum committee at 5 PM.

Click through for the notes.

Video of the March 5, 2012 Newburgh School District Board of Education Budget Workshop meeting is up: embedded player or at YouTube.

There was a brief Special meeting and a lengthy Budget Workshop meeting of the Newburgh School District Board of Education on Monday March 5, 2012.

The bullet points...

• Maxine Nodel was appointed Executive High School Principal effective July 1.

The following budget cuts were approved:

• Reduce 10 one-on-one special ed teaching aides and 20 special ed related teaching assistants.
• Cut ski team and ice hockey team.
• Reduce 7 attendance aides.
• Reduce 5 buildings and grounds positions.
• Eliminate shuttle buses between campuses.
• Reduce 8 typist positions.
• Reduce 7 curriculum directors.
• Reduce 11 secondary teachers.
• Reduce 6 elementary teachers.
• Eliminate van drop off to Children's Corner Daycare.
• Eliminate Executive Director for Special Education position.
• Reduce field trips.
• Eliminate one guidance counselor position.
• Switch Homeless Liaison position to CSEA.
• Reduce Pre-K testing staff by 3.5 fte.
• Reduce Security by 3 fte.
• Reduce 2 Psychologist positions.

Click through for more detailed notes.
Video will be up later on Tuesday.

And... video of the February 28, 2012 Newburgh School District Board of Education meeting is up, too: embedded player or via YouTube.

Video of the January 31, 2012 Newburgh School District Board of Education meeting is up. Try an embedded player or via YouTube.

Bad weather anticipated. The call said all after school and evening activities are cancelled--that would include the BOE Budget Workshop Meeting which had been scheduled for 7 PM.

On Thursday February 16 there was a meeting of the Newburgh School District Finance committee. The meeting was held in the auditorium and began with a presentation by Assistant Superintendent of Finance Pacella. In addition to the committee there was an audience of about twenty--mostly staff, plus a few current and former BOE members.

Pacella presented an overview of the budget process and the effects of the new tax cap law. He said budgets can exceed the cap if approved by a vote of over 60%; but on the other hand if a budget does not get 50% approval then the tax levy cannot exceed the previous year's.

Pacella presented the state formula for the tax cap. Current tax levy is 97,554,000. After all adjustments the allowable levy is 100,133,000. This represents about a 2.6% increase in the tax levy. If state aid stays the same the net effect on the budget is a 1.7% increase.

Looking at aid, the net effect of expected state and federal changes (after factoring out state building aid) is a decrease of 2.5M.

Pacella next looked at rolling forward the current budget. By including pension, contractual obligations, etc, with no cuts or reductions, a tentative budget for next year is 240,800,000. Subtracting local revenue (utility tax, tuition, 2M anticipated use of fund balance--basically all revenue sources other than aid and property tax), and anticipated aid: the taxes needed to support the current budget rolled forward is 113,000,000. So if we intend to hold to the limit under the tax cap, we're starting with a budget gap of 13.7 million dollars.

Major increases to the budget:

• Employees retirement contribution went up to 18.5%.
• Teachers retirement contribution went up 3.1 million.
• Medical insurance expected to go up nearly 6 million.
• Debt service up 3.3 million.
• Salaries up 6.1 million. Pacella said this was not because of raises. He said that those on a step (e.g. all NTA) advance a step automatically every year. [To most people an increase in salary from one year to another is called "a raise".] Pacella also said that the step increases for CSEA amounts to 1.4% and NTA amounts to almost 2% increase. [It's possible that in some kind of aggregate the effect of NTA step increases is 2% but the percentage increase for most steps is greater than 2%.]

Next steps. Not possible to produce a preliminary budget without affecting programs and eliminating positions (the major increases in expense are all staff related). The superintendent will deliver a budget to the Board. It's not likely it will be under the cap. At budget workshops there will be further discussions. Budget vote is May 15.

In 2010-11 there was a 6.1 million reduction and reduction of 27 positions. In 2011-12, 17.8 million reduction, another 139 positions.

Adopting a budget over the cap requires specific language on the ballot. In the past the vote was on the budget, this year it will be on the tax levy. There's also an option to put specific programs on the ballot. This would require the same language about exceeding the cap.

In the past it was possible for the contingent budget (adopted if the budget does not pass--after an optional second vote) to result in a substantial increase in the levy. Under the new law the contingent budget cannot result in a tax increase. If the budget does not pass an additional 2.5 million would need to be cut.

The PowerPoint from the presentation will be available from the district website.

There were only a couple of questions. Art Plichta asked if student transportation could be one of the items put up for separate vote. Pacella said that some mileage limits could be changed via policy change, but there are state requirements.

Superintendent Pizzo said that budget meeting dates would probably be settled at Tuesday's BOE workshop meeting.

Board member Levinstein asked if the state aid numbers were "set in stone" at this point. Pacella and Pizzo both explained that for planning purposes the best assumption is to work from those numbers-the Governor's budget. It's possible that the NYS legislature can make changes. April 1 is the adoption deadline for the state. Typically the district has a budget proposal by the end of March.

The finance committee then went to executive session "to discuss employment history of particular individuals and propose acquisition, sale, or lease of real property, securities only when publicity can substantially affect he value thereof. The Board will not be taking action after the executive session."

The meeting lasted less than twenty five minutes.

On the Meeting Agendas & Minutes page on the NECSD website, if you look at the links for the 02.21.2012 Workshop Meeting, besides the usual link "Agenda" there is another link "Agenda Items" which has additional important details about several of the resolutions to be discussed at the workshop. The availability of this information is likely a response to new Open Meetings Law disclosure rules. Whatever the reason, this is a positive development for the Newburgh School District.

There is an article in the Record today, Newburgh District censors $11K hoops-scandal report which describes the paper's eforts to obtain various reports about the basketball attendance problem. The Record notes that even the final conclusion of one of the reports is obscured.

That is consistent with the statement made by Attorney Shaw last year. Quoting some old meeting notes:

Attorney Shaw presented a statement about the basketball attendance issue. One piece of information he provided was what Ruglis was actually hired to do, "to answer were the members of the 2008-09 2009-10 boys basketball team allowed to cut classes". Shaw didn't say how or even whether Ruglis managed to answer that question.

That was back at the June 28, 2011 Regular BOE meeting, a meeting for which minutes are not available.

There was a Newburgh School District Curriculum Committee meeting Tuesday February 7.

Click through for the notes.