Cuts Eased in Bedford School Budget; Angst Remains

A revised version of the Bedford Central School District's proposed 2013-14 budget restores some of the items that were originally slated to be cut, providing some degree of relief locally but not enough to completely reduce the anxiety.

Administrators detailed the updates at Wednesday's school board meeting. The revisions result in fewer net job cuts, with 21.5 now versus 30.9 in a March version of the budget. This includes saving the jobs of all four elementary school librarians, whose potential layoffs drew alarm.

“It's the best decision for the students of the Bedford Central School Disitrct," said Nancy Brown, a library/media specialist for Fox Lane High School and Fox Lane Midle School.

For the future, however, librarian restructuring is still be considered. Andrew Patrick, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, will be working with the district's librarians to come up with a plan. Whether such a plan would include job cuts is not known yet.

Meanwhile, roughly two teaching positions are planned to be added at the secondary academic level due to larger class sizes. For example, Superintendent Jere Hochman cited classes at Fox Lane High School with 27-29 students, the results of previous budget cuts, as a matter that is problematic and would be addressed by the staff additions.

The updated budget still includes cuts to modified sports and clubs at the middle school and high school, but at levels that are not as deep as originally planned; the original budget called for halving their respective amounts. The Fox Lane Sports Boosters Club is discussing private funding to fill in the gap, while specific clubs to be cut have not been determined.

Overall, the proposed budget calls for a tax levy increase of around 3.37 percent. Although there a levy cap that is officially the lesser of 2 percent or the inflation rate, the planned levy is technically under the cap because of exemptions such as some pension contribution costs. The levy represents how much tax revenue the district plans to collect.

Meanwhile, the projected tax rates for the district's five towns, which represent what people owe, are set to fluctuate. The rates, which are dollar amounts per $1,000 of assessed value, will go up by 4.56 percent for Bedford; 0.68 percent for Mount Kisco; 2.30 percent for New Castle; 3.07 percent for Pound Ridge; 5.51 percent for North Castle.

School board President Susan Wollin pointed out that the district has no control over the specific tax rate amounts. The data are determined by an equation that is used by the state, called the equalization rate. It's used to apportion the tax levy among the district's towns and because the municipalities do not have property assessments at the same levels of their market value. Unlike the tax levy, the tax rates are not capped, and the final rates will not known until the summer.

The overall budget is proposed to cost $124,853,000, a spending increase of 1.76 percent from 2012-13.

The district's easing of cuts is bolstered partly by two factors. They include getting about $100,000 more in state aid than previously anticipated, and through the use of more money from fund balance reserves. In the case of the later factor, this will include using $3,050,000 in undesignated fund balance to act as a revenue source, and using $500,000 from a reserve to pay for costs that support a pension fund for non-faculty employees.

Even with fewer cuts, the budget still has the same financial challenges, which involve rising state-mandated pension costs (up about $2.8 million) and salaries that are slated to go up by about $2.3 million.

“We have absolutely no ability to not pay because they actually take what each school district is obligated to pay out of the state aid," said Wollin.

The board president implored the public - the meeting had heavy turnout - to push state legislators to provide relief from costly mandates, such as the pension contribution structure and a lack of adequate funding for transportation requirements.

“They control the power but actually you all control the power because legislators listen to voters," she said.

The district is hardly out of the woods for cuts. Several proposed cuts, including loss of music rotationals at the high school and middle school levels, and the planned layoff of a student assistance counselor at the high school, were met with scores of concerned citizens.

Fox Lane student Christina Ingraldi implored the district to keep the counselor, Lauren Beeson, noting her role as an advisor with the student club Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), which helps troubled students who deal with obstacles such as drug use.

“Ms. Beeson is really instrumental” in this, she explained.

“Her accomplishments are many and her success in reaching the students is evident," said Fran Seeve, who works with the Mt. Kisco Drug & Alcohol Abuse Prevention Council, of which Beeson is involved with in multiple capacities. 

Nan Miller, a co-coordinator for the drug council, recalled going to a recent SADD meeting and geting valuable insight from students, and felt that Beeson helped foster an atmosphere of trust that made the students more open about the drug use issue.

Beeson's job could potentially be saved. Possible options that will be looked at including reducing the job's hours, or getting funding from outside community groups, Assistant Superintendent for Business Mark Betz told Patch after the meeting.

Ingraldi, also a music student, opposes eliminating rotationals, which involve small instructional groups of students learning their specific instruments. The rotationals, which can potentially conflict with other class periods - some students noted there is flexibility to guard against this being a problem - average about 4-5 students at the high school.

“It's a whole ordeal that I don't think people who don't play an instrument understand," Ingraldi said about the challenges in playing different instruments. She likened relying more on the large, multi-instrument ensemble classes for learning as like having a foreign language classes where multiple languages are taught at once.

“You can't have that many kids," said parent Susie Vallon about relying more on ensembles. 

Meanwhile, the district is considering splitting its secondary level ensembles into smaller sections. For example, a group of roughly 50 students could be divided into two sections of roughly 25 students each.

The school board has until April 17 to adopt a budget, which will be put on the ballot for a public vote on May 21.