SOUTH OTSELIC – Administrators at Otselic Valley have put together preliminary budget figures and if state aid remains where it currently is, the district could face a 15 percent tax levy increase for the 2009/2010 school year.
“We took an early look at what the budget might work out to be next year,” said Business Manager George Lott. He explained that planning for just the basic increases in salaries, contractual costs, retirement and health and dental, the school is looking at a 4.62 percent budget increase, taking the budget total from $8,837,381 for the 2008/2009 school year to approximately $9.2 million for 2009/2010.
“Those are just the modicum increases. The costs that we know are there,” said Superintendent Larry Thomas. “Just to make the budget run, we’re talking about raising $408,000.”
Thomas explained that according to Governor David Paterson’s current executive proposal, the school is looking at a 0 percent increase in operational aid. “We need $408,000 to plug in to what we’ve got now,” Thomas said. “We need the stimulus package.”
While the district is hoping to see some relief from the stimulus package, they have no idea how much money they may receive or how it will be applied, and they are not relying on it for this year’s budget.
“We know that the way to shrink the budget with the greatest impact is with layoffs,” Thomas said. “We’ve started working on seniority lists.” The district is also compiling lists of years of service and examining how they might structure retirement packages.
“This is non-discriminatory in terms of instructional and non-instructional staff,” the superintendent said.
The school is also examining transportation routes and other factors to determine if they might be able to save money in other ways. “Personnel is a large amount of dollars, but we are looking at every area,” said Board President Dave Cruikshank. “Nobody wants to cut people. It may become a necessity, but we are looking at other sources.”
“We’re in a position where we know how much money we need to come up with, but we don’t know what our revenues will be,” Thomas said. “If we didn’t think the stimulus package was out there, we could start discussing positions that could be eliminated,” Thomas said. “Now we’re wondering if the money is out there for us.”
Thomas pointed out that even if the school does receive a good stimulus package from the government, the 2010/2011 year may still prove troubling. “We still might want to look at cutting spending,” Thomas said.
Otselic Valley is hoping the community will get involved in the budget process early this year. “The board is all aware of the effect this could have on the community. This is not easy and we want the public input,” Cruikshank said. Upcoming budget and school board meetings will be posted on the school web site at www.ovcs.org.
While the tax levy increase could be as high as 15 percent, the school is still facing another issue, as both school buildings are badly in need of repair. Thomas explained that the preliminary budget figures do not include those repairs.