A Few Thoughts on the Blind Brook Budget

Last October when the district thought it was facing $800,00 in budget cuts in order to stay under the tax cap, Blind Brook Superintendent Stark presented the Board of Education with a list of possible areas that might have to be cut.  Some of those suggestions clearly got the attention of parents in the district.  For example, the idea that the middle school sports program could be completely wiped out was so inflammatory that some parents started circulating a petition to not only save the sports program, but to override the budget cap.  Before the petition was presented to the board, however, the grey skies cleared, and the $800,000 number shrank significantly, because the pension contribution and health care premiums for the district unexpectedly came down to save the day.

Next year we may not be so lucky.  We don’t control what those numbers are going to be.  If they take a turn for the worse, we could be right back between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  For an example of what that might look like, please read Sunday’s Journal News article on the Port Chester School District.

I don’t mean to suggest that we will be looking at paring back kindergarten to a half day anytime soon, but as I was quoted in the Journal News on April 15th, every district has its due date unless there is dramatic change in Albany.  That same sentiment is also expressed in this article:

It is a mantra of local school districts that the state’s new property-tax levy cap will force unprecedented cuts to instruction in two, three, maybe four years.

We should be looking for ways to keep our budget as tight as possible.  Every dollar we save today pushes our “day of reckoning” a little bit further out into the future.  Blind Brook still has a cushion available to protect us from the painful cuts that you will read about in the above article about Port Chester schools where reading specialists and even the student newspaper have fallen victim to budget cuts.  The cushion that I’m referring to is our reserve funds which are still healthy.  Nothing is a sure thing though if you recall the $850,000 settlement that Blind Brook had to offer Doral Arrowwood to settle a tax dispute.  Who is to say that there won’t be more tax certioraris filed that come back to bite us?

Last Monday night the Blind Brook Board of Education adopted a budget proposal that will be put to a vote in an election on May 15th.  The budget-to-budget increase is less than one percent, and the tax levy increase is 1.32 percent which comes in comfortably below the tax cap.  Crisis averted — though I never really believed that there would be a crisis in the first year of the new tax cap law — at least for Blind Brook.  If you talk to parents — or school board members — in Port Chester, Mount Vernon, or Yonkers, however, they will tell you what the crisis looks like when it starts to unfold.

For the meantime — in Blind Brook anyway — it’s pretty much business as usual.  The board of education was feeling pretty confident about the future when it approved the line item to purchase $100,000 in new computer equipment for the district.  I might have even gone along with a portion of that in order to keep up with the normal computer replacement cycle, but let’s be clear, a lot of the computers that we have for student use are not absolutely necessary to provide an outstanding education.  These are luxury amenities that we provide because we can — not because our students cannot learn without them.

Our Ass’t Superintendent, Jonathan Ross, does an excellent job with our budget.  He managed to squeeze dollars out of it that no one else was likely to find — and he does it every year.  Yet, he is not a magician, and at some point even he will say that we will have to start making some difficult decisions about programs and services.  This year’s superintendent’s budget not only beat our expectations, but it gives us approximately $150,000 of additional room under next year’s cap.  I must say, however, that I was disappointed that the Board of Education wasn’t able to find additional areas for savings.  Maybe next year we will?

Reminder:  The Blind Brook budget goes to the voters for approval on May 15th.  There will also be 3 candidates on the ballot who are vying to fill 2 seats on the Blind Brook board.  They are former board member, , who is eager to make a comeback; CFAC member and newcomer, Dan Savitt; and the one-term incumbent, Nancy Barr.

Jeff Diamond serves on the Blind Brook Board of Education. This post presents his point of view and does not represent the opinion of the Blind Brook Board of Education.