BC News

Community discusses bridging a $4.4 million gap

More than 200 residents meet in-person, online to discuss potential savings areas

The following are notes from the group at Tables 5 and 6 at the Community Budget forum. Read more about the forum here.

What are your reactions to the potential reductions listed on the budget worksheet?

Transportation

The group was concerned about the safety of extending the walking distances. Also, some members suggested that if more parents wind up driving their children to school because of this, to stagger drop-off times to avoid congestion in the lots.
A student stated that she feels like she doesn’t walk far enough to her bus stop and wondered if the district would consider consolidate stops instead of increasing walking distance.

Operations

Members of the group asked if the Middle School pool were to close, could the programs be consolidated at the High School level. The comment was made that families must do more on their own – pay for swim lessons, for example.

Administration

Group suggested possibly reducing clerical workweek and making support staff 11-month instead of 12-month employees.

Elementary reductions

Group suggested reducing specials teachers to 0.6 to keep specials each week.
There was a lot of support for cutting 4th grade strings in this group.
How would reducing specials influence the regular education teachers?
Is guidance mandated at the elementary level?

Secondary reductions

• The group felt that cutting librarians would be bad, as they help the students so much.
Reducing electives would be OK so long as the cuts were equal among subjects.
Require each student to take lunch and a free period so that class size isn’t overloaded.

Athletic reductions

•It was unanimous among the group that if there are academic cuts that it’s fair there should be cuts to athletics.

Special education

There was support for cutting aides from some in the group who felt the district had many.
The general consensus was that aides do a lot, but would prefer them being cut as opposed to teachers

Tax levy options

•The group said they would support a 4 percent increase in taxes levied, but above that would be difficult to support.
•The district also has to be more proactive in its outreach:
    Flyers at Price Chopper
    TV ads
    Times Union blog
    More articles in The Spotlight
•Find better ways to boil down the information - the presentation assumes a certain level of education.
•Communicate the per-student costs/cuts
•Find unique ways to communicate tax information (ex. “This increase in your tax bill be equal to 10 cups of coffee”)

Materials related to the budget process and Feb. 28 community budget forum:

Click here to see a detailed list of the proposals and their impacts [PDF].

Click here for video of the meeting and budget forum,

Click here to view video of the webcasted portion of the Feb. 28 community budget forum.

Click here for the transcript of the February 28 web chat [PDF].

Click here to read more about the district's budget picture.

Understanding the new Property Tax Levy Cap

Agendas, minutes and video of previous meetings can be found here. The 2012-13 budget planning calendar can be found here. 

Read Superintendent Douglas' note on becoming involved in the budget process here.

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