GREENE – Despite more than $880,000 in cuts to programs and staffing, Greene taxpayers will face a 2.88 percent increase in the property tax levy this year. The hike is the largest increase residents of the Greene Central School District have felt in a number of years, reported District Business Manager Mark Rubitski.
The tentative budget adopted by the GCSD school board last week totals $23,910,568, an 8.27 percent increase in spending over the current year’s budget.
“That comes with a large caveat,” said Rubitski, who explained that the increase in total spending isn’t why taxpayers will be feeling the pinch this year.
The school business official said the $1,827,179 budget to budget increase reflects the capital improvement project currently underway, which he stressed was not impacting the tax levy.
“When we proposed the current Capital Program, we promised this would not impact the levy,” the school business official said. “We are meeting that promise.”
Instead, Rubitski and Superintendent Jonathan Retz attribute the need for a tax levy increase to decreases in state aid, which translate into a $729,281 net loss in revenue next year. The full impact of Governor David Paterson’s Gap Elimination plan would have drained $1.1 million from the district’s coffers, Retz said, but that reduction had been offset by the last of the federal stimulus funds awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
To close the gap, the district has proposed $881,180 in cuts, including staff reductions.
Most significantly, the plan will eliminate a number of positions, including 5.4 teachers. According to Retz, two teacher retirements and two maternity leaves “helped soften the blow,” but one 7-12 math teacher will be let go. Another teaching position, in technology position, will be reduced to part-time.
In addition three licensed teaching assistants and six teachers aides will be eliminated on the instructional side. One cafeteria worker, one transportation employee and a part-time custodial positions will also be cut. Another custodial position, being vacated by retirement, will be left unfilled.
Other cuts will include reductions in discretionary spending across the board, better management of after-hours use of the district’s facilities and the elimination of appliances – like coffee makers and microwaves – in individual classrooms.
“We tried to spread it across the entire district,” said Rubitski.
While all interscholastic athletic programs will be maintained, Retz said their budgets will be reduced and expenses managed more closely.
Rubitski expects the district to realize an $80,000 savings in utility costs next year as a result of upgrades and improvements made during the capital project. The middle/high school’s geo-thermal system will be online this fall, he explained, and the other buildings will have new boilers and control systems in place by then as well, which will be more efficient than the 50-year-old equipment in use.
The Greene Central School district will also use approximately $100,000 from its undesignated fund balance to offset the impact on district taxpayers.
“We’ll need our reserves in some of the upcoming years,” the business manager said, who anticipates even hard times to come next year when they will lose the close to $400,000 in federal stimulus funds which helped close this year’s budget gap.
“Next year it’s going to get even more interesting,” agreed Retz, who said the district is already working out a strategy to deal with that eventuality. They are also keeping a close eye on Albany to learn if the governor’s proposal to take back $212,871 in categorical aid before the end of the current academic year will be realized.
“It’s a difficult time,” the superintendent said, one which he thinks could end up fundamentally changing how public education is financed and how schools are run in New York State.
“You have to run it more like a business,” agreed Rubitski, who worked in the private sector prior to his current role.
According to the business manager, budget brochures will be mailed to district residents at the beginning of May. A budget hearing has been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Monday, May 10 in the Middle School/High School auditorium.