Draft Webutuck budget projects 2 percent tax increase

WEBUTUCK — Steven Schoonmaker, superintendent for the North East Central School District (commonly known as Webutuck), presented the Board of Education with a brief preliminary budget proposal for the 2011-12 school year showing a 1.52 percent budget-to-budget increase from the previous year and a 2 percent estimated tax levy increase.The superintendent introduced his budget at the March 21 board meeting by illustrating the district’s dire financial situation. A roll-over budget, in which programming would be kept the same as the year before, would result in a 5.28 percent budget-to-budget increase (more than $1 million) and an estimated tax increase of nearly 10 percent. That was not an option, Schoonmaker said, and district administrators went about making reductions to bring that number down. In reaching the 2 percent tax levy, reductions of nearly $750,000 were found in a variety of areas, including the retirement and staff cuts (those two areas account for nearly 85 percent of the total proposed reductions). Schoonmaker’s budget presentation did not specify which positions were being considered for elimination.Like other school districts in the state, Webutuck is still waiting on several significant pieces of information that will be revealed when the state passes a budget. While last year’s budget was more than five months late (officially the deadline for passing a state budget is April 1; last year’s arrived in August, long after school districts had already passed their own budgets). There has been speculation that this year the state will adopt a budget on time. The adopted budget will officially reveal how much state aid school districts will receive; up until now school districts have been budgeting according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget proposal. The actual aid figure is expected to restore some of those projected cuts.“I don’t think discussions are complete by any means,” Schoonmaker said, adding that the budget would be a document still open to discussion and potential changes by the board, “and we’re going to keep folks informed as to where we are in that process.”“The last two years have been very challenging,” school board President Dale Culver said. “But we have a responsibility to deliver a final budget that is as responsive as can be to the community.”While Culver acknowledged that the board is behind in the budget process, it is moving forward through ongoing meetings of the district’s Finance Committee.If the state aid reductions end up being less than the governor’s proposal, Trustee and Finance Committee member Joe Matteo said, the board has three options: Restore some of the positions or services proposed to be cut, allocate the additional money to the district’s reserves fund or lower the tax rate. Those three options could also be used in combination with each other, he added.Culver said that last year the district was able to slim down its operating budget by closing Amenia Elementary School and selling the building to the town of Amenia for use as a Town Hall for $1. The board is hoping to go through a similar process with the Millerton Elementary School building; it will need voters’ approval when they head to the polls this May. Unlike Amenia, it is still unclear how the Millerton Elementary School building would be used; the village of Millerton, the town of North East, the North East Community Center and American Legion Post 178 have all discussed the possibility of using the building.Dealing with the district’s ongoing fiscal concerns, Matteo said, “unfunded mandates are the big weight on our backs,” and the board and administration are hoping that mandate relief bills will be addressed by the state soon.Culver said that while government spending has continued on an unsustainable rise over the years, Webutuck has tried to be as fiscally prudent as possible, but there are only so many reductions the district can withstand.“We’ve had two budgets in the last 10 years with budget-to-budget decreases,” he pointed out. “We don’t have that history of steady growth, but there’s a certain point where you can’t cut anymore and still believe that you’re doing the best thing for the kids.”