District Tries to Budget its Budget

The Port Washington Board of Education presented the first draft of the school district's 2010-11 budget to the public on Tuesday night at Weber Middle School. The initial proposal is $128,284,306, a 2.92 percent increase from the 2009-10 approved budget of $124,640,568.

The first and foremost topic discussed at the school board meeting was the reduction in educational needs. According to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Geoffrey N. Gordon the goal was to get the budget increase below three percent, a goal the school board has tentatively reached. Gordon adamantly expressed that this budget has come a long way in a short time, but that he understands that there is a long road ahead.

"It's very important for people to understand that this is the first budget hearing, it is not a recommended budget by New York statute," Gordon said. "The administration has worked very hard refining the process that began with our teachers in October, when data was gathered from each of them to determine what specific educational needs were prevalent and most necessary to continue the quality of education that Port Washington has come to expect."

The reduction total from the 2009-10 budget is $1,501,425, most notably the pre-kindergarten reductions of $359,000 (two teachers and three educational assistants) and district reductions of $720,000. The district cuts consist of four elementary school teachers, one librarian and one social worker, as well as a middle school math program (Academic Intervention Service).

"The proposal is to reconfigure the pre-k program so that there will be four half-day programs requiring two instructors rather than four," Superintendent of Business Mary Callahan said. "With this reduction, we believe we can allocate other resources to other areas that wane in the school district."

Dr. Gordon added that the district is looking for "different ways to supplement the emotional learning outside of the present pre-k structure."

The district's library system would see a decrease with this proposed budget as well. "We're in difficult times and we need to make difficult choices," Callahan said. "Librarians understate education department guidelines. School districts are required to have one librarian. We currently enjoy the rich, wonderful work of eight librarians."

Some residents feel the answer should not rest in the cost cutting of educational needs, but on the educators themselves. Port Washington parent Stephanie Rich said she thinks the teachers and administrators should accept a pay freeze.

"I think, under the economic circumstances of Port Washington and statewide, that it's suitable for the staff of the school district to accept a salary freeze," said Rich, a member of the Port Washington Education Assembly. "I think the teachers should volunteer for that. It's more productive to address that issue because it's the salaries that have driven up the cost of the total budget figure."

Professional/administrative salaries account for 42 percent of the proposed budget, while benefits account for another 20 percent. Rich said she feels those numbers are all the more reason to accept a freeze since 62 percent of the budget goes directly to those employees. "The freeze seems the most logical way to go, if they really want to cut costs," she said. "They're cutting over $1 million from the budget, yet the overall budget is projected to increase way over $3 million. It's not right."

That increase may be due to the increase in overall teacher salary. The anticipated expenditure of salaries for teachers is projected to be $41,385,463 by Jun. 30. Under the proposed budget, it would increase by another $2,041,914.

Callahan explained that it's required by law to give staff increases and that the only way to reduce salary costs is to eliminate jobs which would in turn increase class size. "I am required to provide these increases to staff members who are in bargaining units," she said. "The only way then to reduce salary costs and the budget is to eliminate some of the people, which means increase class size or have less supervision on the playground or fewer administrators. That's not something that can be sacrificed. The children are important here."

The requirement of staff increases, the board says, is because of the Taylor Law of New York State that was approved in 1967. The law says there's an obligation of public employees to not strike, but in turn, it's the obligation of the employer to continue the benefits the employees had in their contract until a new one is negotiated.

While more than half of the $3 million budget increase is potentially coming from raises, district administrators said that this is necessary due to rising costs in a struggling economy. "Costs for health insurance go up, pension systems go up," Callahan said. "Right now, this board and the administration is not saying that we're going to eliminate programs for children, we're saying we're trying to keep the costs as low as possible because we understand that this is a difficult time for many people in their lives."

Based on her discussions with the other administrators, Callahan said there are hopes that there won't be any further cuts in the budget increase, but that they will continue to look into it.

"We've been given a directive to do more," Callahan said. "That means more meetings with the administrators to see if there's anything else they can suggest to lower the budget increase. We are trying."