For years, the warning signs that culminated in the 2011 NYS 2 percent tax cap were clearly visible. You would have to be blind not to have seen them. Members of the Riverhead Central School District Board of Education who raised flags of concern were ignored or worse yet voted out of office. The BOE chose to ignore them, pretending that the revenue stream was like an magnificent buffet table on a cruise ship — loaded with culinary delights and endlessly replenished.
Well the Good Ship Andrew Cuomo not only has eliminated the endless buffet, but also has chartered a course that requires creative, bold, and decisive actions. The big question — what exactly is the Board of Education planning for the 2012/2013 budget recommendation — is the gorilla in the room. Goals adopted by the Board, a first step at best, will most probably yield a budget recommendation that eliminates or diminishes administrative oversight and management, minimizes physical campus maintenance, and continues to skimp on resources for the most needy students in the district, our K-4 students.
What the public will be asked to support in the May budget vote will be a re-run of past bad practices and policies re-packaged with new wrappings and bows. It will be another work product like the building bond referendum — a smaller box fashioned from a larger box, but still containing all the same elements that have wrecked such havoc on the district’s tax payers. There will be no in-depth examination and analysis of education goals and objectives or identification of the resources necessary to ensure their realization; there will be no “out-of-the-box” thinking; there will be no future planning built into the budget proposal; and most sadly no sacred cows will be sacrificed for the sake of providing opportunities for ALL the children and not just a chosen few.
So what to do?
Obviously, we need to tighten our belt. It does not have to be permanent, but for the next year, and perhaps the next after that it is a necessity. The BOE needs to take strong steps this year, some seemingly Draconian, but unfortunately necessary. They need to take a step back, place a moratorium on several spending areas’ growth, and eliminate several non- mandated services. They need to give the district time to reorganize and restructure its finances for future generations of our children. The need to shift the budget paradigm from sustaining an education bureaucracy [the school is a business mantra] to promoting and supporting education for our children.
Some suggestions:
Cost area # 1: Horizontal movement on staff salary schedules.
This movement, adding as much as 3 percent annually to base salaries, needs to be put aside for at least two years. The district does not require most of the movement generated by this aspect of salary schedules. And all movement must be approved by the Superintendent and the BOE. A two-year moratorium on movement would give the district some breathing space and the ability to explore other avenues. Simultaneously, develop and implement a long-term staff continuing education program that reflects district educational needs across and between grades. This plan should utilize opportunities such as grade meetings and department meetings and not spend funds twice to accomplish the same objective.
Cost area # 2: Student transportation.
Years ago RCSD elected to provide its own student transportation service. This has resulted in the creation of a huge fleet of transport vehicles, vehicle fuel bills that only increase each year, a staff of some 80-plus drivers, bus monitors, and 10-plus maintenance mechanics. The annual bill for this decision has risen to more than $6 million, excluding health insurance, payroll taxes, and retirement buyouts. We provide transportation to students beyond the NYS mandates, and why? Not because it is a need, but to fulfill our self-ordained role as a social service agency, providing jobs and benefits to legions of town residents. The unanticipated growth and cost of providing such an entitlement needs to be re-examined and cut back.
For the next fiscal year and the one following:
Eliminate after-school buses except for the elementary K-6 after school programs;
Combine bus routes and times for the middle school and high school;
Provide bus transportation only for those eligible by NYS Department of Education law
Cost Area # 3: High school electives
The junior and senior years in high school are spent fulfilling final basic core diploma requirements [four classes for juniors and three for seniors] and for the most part filling the rest of the day’s schedule with electives. The electives are necessary to achieve the requisite 22 credits for a diploma at graduation. However, the number of electives offered is significant, perhaps a bit excessive, sometimes repetitive between departments, and could be characterized at times as simple filler, or “seat time.”
While the district awaits future economic relief and the discovery of new sources of revenue, it needs, for the immediate future, to pull back on the electives, look to where it can eliminate repetition, and for the next two years, not enroll seniors in electives merely to fill their nine-period day. If there are sufficient credits to earn the diploma with enrollment in just the mandated courses, then allow them to compete those in periods 1-4 and then release them from school. This is not as radical an idea as it sounds — many school districts have been doing this for years and their graduates are not at all disadvantaged.
Additionally, enrollment in electives needs to be assessed. A class or section with fewer than 20 students needs to be eliminated for the next year.
And some of the savings achieved here need not be eliminated altogether from the proposed budget. Instead certain amounts can be directed to our K-4 elementary schools to provide all the necessary resources ensuring our youngest charges get all the skills needed to continue a rich and fulfilling educational career in grades 5-12. The disparity between resources at the high school level and the elementary schools needs to be reversed if we intend to properly prepare all K-4 students for the rest of their education.
Cost Area # 4: Unmandated after-school activities
RCSD offers a rich and varied after-school activities schedule. Clubs and sports abound and abound at significant cost in salary and benefits. This arena certainly can be subjected to some downsizing.
- An inventory of those after-school clubs that fail to maintain participation levels at 15 students or above need to be put on hold.
- Sport activities with less than 15 participants need to be put on hold.
- Sport activities such as cheerleading need to be considered a single activity, and not two fall and winter activities as is the current practice [which by the way costs you twice the coaching fees and benefits for the same participants in each season].
- Combine fall, winter and spring track and field into a single track and field activity- the current practice costs three times in salary and benefits. The list for sports goes on and on.
- Eliminate middle school sports as interscholastic and instead have them as intramural only.
And how, you may ask, will our young people advantage themselves of after school activities? RCSD needs to look to other districts and explore how they met cuts in these non-mandated after school activities. Our new school foundation, Booster clubs, PTOs, and PTAs can all raise the moneys needed to fund these activities during these hard times.
Cost Area # 5: Middle school foreign language courses
The offering of foreign language courses [Latin, Spanish, and French] at the Middle School level is commendable , gives students a leg up on finishing the language graduation requirement , but can be put on hold for a period of time with no harm to the students. Starting next fall, 2012, students in seventh grade should not be enrolled in foreign language courses; the same should occur in 2013. These young people can take up their foreign language requirement in high school with no disadvantage in their education. The money saved is significant, and will include payroll and future retirement costs, a large but oftentimes absent topic at budget discussions.
There is no one panacea to our financial pickle. No one suggestion has more merit than another, nor should any suggestion be ignored. Given the 2 percent cap, the challenge for our BOE is one of creativity, innovation, and focus on the prize- excellence in education. As they go forward with the public meetings on the various cost areas of the new budget proposal, lets pray they are truly open and transparent about our money, that the public truly has sufficient information and understanding to be comfortable and supportive of the final proposal. And let us expect that the final proposal will focus on education and the needs of our children and not on the needs and wants of staff.
Angela DeVito is a former member and past president of the Riverhead Board of Education. She lives in South Jamesport.