Just Say Yes
No doubt about it, it's been a spring of tough choices for the
Onteora Central School District. The issues are the usual ones,
what we can and can't afford to do for our kids, but what's
unusual for Onteora is the way things have been handled, because
they've been handled extremely well. Both the Board under Marino
D'Orazio and the Administration under Superintendent Hal Rowe
have worked very hard these past months to develop and present
to us a range of options and alternative budgeting scenarios
to deal with the fiscal realities we're facing. And there's
been a huge effort that's gone into listening and into really
hearing everyone out, as so many of us have tried to make sense
of the choices ahead, and of their fiscal, social, and educational
costs.
Particularly positive is that if there's a political dimension
to what's happening, we haven't seen it. Given the acrimony
that's characterized the Board's past 5 or 6 years, that by
itself is quite extraordinary. In fact it's hard to even imagine
having the kind of reasoned and thoughtful public dialogue like
the one we've been having this spring, in the kind of cranky,
politicized climate that used to prevail. That transformation
by itself is proof we've done well, that we're figuring out
how to work together, and that our community's growing up in
ways even our kids can be proud of. Sure the choices we're making
are hard, but what we're seeing is community decision-making
the way it's supposed to work. However things turn out, the
Board's shown a level of care and openness and professionalism
that many of us had probably forgotten was possible.
On May 20th, we'll be voting on a budget. Some people are not
going to happy with the cuts it entails, and others are not
going to be happy with any budget that gets proposed. School
budgets are really the only place where people have the chance
to say no-we-don't want-it to any kind, any level of tax increase.
In that respect they provide a singular way to protest against
one of the facts of life hardly any of us are crazy about: the
simple fact that taxes will go up one way or another, whatever
we do. And while we'd all like to see that happen as little
and as slowly as possible, that's as true for the Trustees as
it is for the rest of us, and the budget that's proposed reflects
that. This budget wasn't created by taking last year's, maintaining
everything that's in it, and rolling it over. Had the Board
done that, we'd be facing $2.3 million more in expenditures
than have been proposed, translating to a 16 or 17 percent tax
increase. But that's not what we're looking at by a long shot.
The budget we'll be voting on - $40.3 million ¯ represents
about a 5 percent increase in total spending over last year's
levels. But that's not because the district's chosen to spend
5 percent more than they really need to. Actually it's as low
as it is because the proposed budget starts by cutting $1.8
million from current spending levels, which is no small accomplishment.
And yet despite these very significant cuts, we're still looking
at an overall spending increase because we're still forced to
cover both unfunded mandates and other rising non-discretionary
costs beyond our local control. The district's health care bills,
for example, are up 12 percent over last year's. And Governor
Pataki has pulled out at least $375,000 that we'll now have
to cover as well. So to make the proposed budget work, 36 staff
positions will be eliminated, 12 of them teachers and 9 others
in Special Ed. These 36 layoffs are if the budget passes; if
it doesn't, the number jumps to 78 jobs eliminated. That's a
big number for our small towns, it's pretty close to 1 percent
of the total work force that lives in the district. And there
are plenty of additional cuts in transportation, custodial and
maintenance costs, and elsewhere throughout the budget. Of particular
importance, the budget also reflects the Board's choice to keep
all four of our elementary schooIs open. We think that's the
right choice for now for all of us, not just for West Hurley,
spared from seeing the doors to its school locked.
It's a choice that reflects what our community
as a whole wants and can accept, and it's the kind of good choice
we elected our Trustees to make.
The budget we'll be voting on next month is a good one, and
we believe well worthy of support. We urge you to vote on May
20th, and vote YES on the budget.
It's an unfortunate fact of life that school
budgets frequently pass or fail based on the perceived interests
of 2 groups: those with children for whom the quality of education
is palpably important, and those whose children have grown up,
and now want to see as few tax dollars as possible channeled
into our schools. We hope that this spring, people will think
hard - harder than usual - about casting a vote of protest against
the budget, and against the best possible level of educational
opportunity we can afford to give our children. In real dollars
for each of us, the difference is small between what's proposed
by the district and the alternative; the austerity budget we'll
have to adopt if we fail to approve what's proposed.
Ironically, voting the budget down doesn't
mean our taxes won't go up; they will go up, at least 3 percent.
So the real cost difference between giving our schools what
they need and not doing so is around 5 percent on the bill we'll
see next year. We'd all like to have a few dollars more in our
pocket at the end of the year, but what's in that pocket on
any given day doesn't necessarily reflect even our best self-interest,
to say nothing of the interests of the whole of our community.
All of us are served, well served, by living in a school district
with a recognizably high quality and standard of education.
It's something we can see in everything from who's moving into
our neighborhoods, to how much our homes can sell for.
More important still, it's something we can
see in our kids. A good school district's worth a lot more than
a fair one. And a very good one like the one we're building,
is a very fair deal for the kind of tax dollars they're asking
of us.
