Batavia City School Board President Patrick Burk described having to cut 30 staff positions as “incredibly sad” and said he hopes that New York State doesn't inflict any more pain upon the district.
On Tuesday night, by a vote of 4-1, the Board of Education cut 30 full-time positions and one half-time position to produce personnel cost savings of $1,586,513 -- and move the district within $47,000 of complying with the state mandated tax cap.
Burk, Barbara Bowman, Shawna Murphy and John Marucci voted in favor of the reductions while Tanni Bromley voted against the measure. Peter Cecere was absent.
“Today, in reflecting on it, it is just incredibly sad that we have to look at ways to bring the services needed within our school community by not having some of the people that have provided those needs,” Burk said. “And it affects people in several areas. The cuts were across the board."
The positions to be cut are as follows:
-- Two district administrators;
-- One treasurer;
-- One secretary;
-- One Grade 7-12 math teacher;
-- A second school resource officer;
-- Two special education teachers;
-- One clerk-typist;
-- Five reading teachers across the district;
-- Five elementary teachers;
-- One maintenance worker;
-- Ten teaching aides (most long-term substitutes);
-- One half-time music teacher.
Burk: 'The best we can do considering' ...
“For me to have to do something that there’s no other answer to was, and is, probably the saddest thing,” Burk said. “We had to do this one other time, reducing staff when gap elimination aid started, but I think it’s hard when everything in the world right now is so uncertain, and to keep everybody employed to the end of the school year is the best that we can do considering the situation.”
Superintendent Anibal Soler Jr. said the positions marked for deletion were decided in a previous executive session, with last night’s action “getting us pretty close to where we need to go to (toward balancing the 2020-21 budget).”
By eliminating these positions, the district’s proposed budget increases by $999,440 (1.98 percent) and the tax levy climbs by only $39,905 (0.2 percent), Business Administrator Scott Rozanski said.
But since the district is in a “negative tax cap situation,” it needs to come up with another $47,000 to meet the cap and avoid a 60-percent plus one supermajority vote of the public to pass the budget.
Soler said about $200,000 in transportation budget savings can be achieved by modifying the school day schedules at the district’s four locations.
Soler proposes changing school hours
His plan, which needs support from the Batavia Teachers’ Association, would put Batavia High School and Batavia Middle School on a 7:30 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. schedule, and John Kennedy Intermediate School and Jackson Primary School on a 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. schedule. By doing this, the district would be able to use fewer buses across the four schools, thus saving money.
Soler said that every student in the district would be able to ride a bus, calling it a "huge win." He said that he expects the teachers’ union to vote on the proposal this Friday.
The superintendent said he is wary of more state cuts to school aid, offering that another 20 percent reduction would result in a $6 million shortfall and “would decimate us.” He is hopeful that it would be much less than that, if at all.
“We’re at a good spot with the budget but I’m still concerned about what is coming (from Gov. Andrew Cuomo),” he said. “There was talk about this being an opportunity to reimagine schools. I really don’t know what that means with all the contractual obligations (that we have).”
Burk said the board plans to adopt a budget on May 5, but may have to convene earlier depending upon news out of Albany.
More state aid cuts down the line?
“I’m concerned that we may have more adjustments at the state level. If federal money doesn’t come through, districts could be cut by 20 percent,” he said. “There could be reductions in the current 2019-20 school aid formula that will result in further reduction. I’m hoping that we have enough left over from a couple of areas to cover those reductions.”
As far as who will be laid off, Burk said decisions are based on longevity, with the school board and the unions coming to an agreement on employees’ service time.
“The way the system works is that we announce the positions and then the bargaining units are given the sheets to determine if their records of longevity match our records of longevity. Once those are merged and both parties agree (then individual employees will be notified),” he said. “If there’s a position being cut in a specific area or tenure, the person who has been here the shortest time is cut.”
He said that the teacher aide positions were long-term substitutes “who would have been gone at the end of the (school year) anyway and then repositioned as needed starting in September.”
Burk said three points come to mind when looking at the current budget scenario:
“The three things that are probably the most disturbing are that instead of an increase in aid that originally was proposed by the governor …, we’re actually getting a slight decrease; that our tax cap because of the economy and building, and so forth, which is far too confusing, has actually ended up being a negative number; and that while we knew we had some increases going into next year, we didn’t really know to what extent the retirement and health insurance total number would be.”
Burk, who has led the board for many years, said a major problem with the entire process is that the school district has to present a budget in May without knowing what the local tax dollars or the actual state aid figures will be until September.
Benedict voted in as new board member
In other action, the board voted unanimously in favor of Alice Ann Benedict filling a vacant spot on the board.
Benedict previously served on the school board for 10 years, including three as president.
“Alice Ann is a real solid person, she’s from the community – a Batavia graduate – and when the vacancy occurred she expressed interest,” Burk said. “We need as many minds and as many thinking people on this process from now until whenever it ends up being as possible.”
Burk said Benedict will serve until there is another election, with the date unknown at this time.
