GUILDERLAND — The word “difficult” was spoken often last Thursday night as the Guilderland School Board looked at ways to pare down its proposed $103.5 million spending plan for next year — difficult choices, difficult times, difficult future.

The new spending plan cuts 13 positions — roughly seven more than the first plan — and lands exactly at the 2.25-percent levy hike Guilderland is allowed without requiring a 60-percent approval from voters; a simple majority will do.

That means the most the district can levy in local property taxes next year is $74,990,996, which is an increase of $1,652,055 over the current year.

The suburban district typically gets roughly a quarter of its budget from state aid.

The new proposal totals $103,071,313, just under $1 million more than this year’s budget, for an increase in spending of .94 percent. The draft that the superintendent presented on March 10 had a 1.4-percent increase in spending.

The biggest change is that the district now plans to use much less from its fund balance and reserves so that it has those resources going forward in what Superintendent Marie Wiles called “a time of unprecedented uncertainty.”

Because of restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the board members and school administrators met remotely, talking through their computer screens in a session that was also open to the public for viewing and is now posted on the district’s website.

District residents may share their comments and question on the proposal via Thoughtexchange through April 24. The board will consider the comments at its next meeting, on April 7. Wiles said at the board’s April 7 meeting that 170 people had made comments so far, and she encouraged others to do the same.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has moved the state-set voting date for school budget and school board elections from May 19 to no sooner than June 1, and much is still up in the air.

“We really do not have a deadline yet for the completion of the budget,” Wiles said at the April 7 board meeting. She said the advice from experts was to “adopt our budget as late as we can” so that the district has the best information. The April 7 meeting was originally to have been the date for the board to adopt its spending plan.

Wiles said there was also “no word on the timeline or means of the board elections.” She called it “yet another wait and see” but noted that, for health reasons, the New York State School Boards Association strongly recommended against candidates going door-to-door with petitions.

Because of resignations from the nine-member Guilderland School Board, five positions, instead of the usual three, are at play this year. Of the five posts, three are for full three-year terms to be filled by the top vote-getters.

Wiles said Guilderland’s goal is always to balance student needs with resources, keeping the top priority as serving student needs for the long run. “Our goal was to preserve program as much as we possibly can,” she said. Wiles noted that a “big shadow” has fallen over every part of all of our lives.

“We are in a place where there is no path. We are making the path,” she said, noting the budget proposal is still “a work in process” with “many moving parts.”

She also said she had learned from Anita Murphy, superintendent of the Capital Region BOCES who has a daily conference call with local school superintendents, that the state budget on education is “not as draconian” as it may appear.

There is a new aid category called “pandemic adjustment.” Money from the federal CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act is to equal the funds cut from state education aid — $1.5 billion — to make schools whole, Wiles reported.

“I never heard anything about it until we saw aid runs yesterday,” Wiles said on April 2 of the $195,000 pandemic funds that are part of Guilderland’s current budget draft. “Whether it materializes remains to be seen,” said Wiles.

She also said that she is more worried about the 2021-22 budget, which she fears could be like the school budget crisis in the midst of the Great Recession.

A decade ago, when there were severe cuts in state school aid, Guilderland cut scores of programs and dozens of staff members. If the economy remains stagnant because of the pandemic, there could again be mid-year cuts to school aid. Automatic reductions in state spending, controlled by Cuomo, were part of the state budget deal.

“The budget was difficult because the state has no money and how do you do a budget when you can’t really forecast revenues, and we came up with a somewhat novel budget that actually is calibrated to future revenues or losses,” Cuomo said at his April 3 press briefing.

The governor went on, “So we really start with an assumption and then what we’re saying is, when we see how much revenue the state makes, how fast the economy comes back, what the expenses are, we’ll calibrate accordingly.”

Guilderland’s assistant superintendent for business, Neil Sanders, said on April 2 that he had only just gotten the aid numbers from the state budget. The governor’s executive budget, on which the superintendent’s budget, presented on March 10, had been based, had Guilderland getting a slight increase in Foundation Aid, the aid that follows every student, amounting to $77,649.

However, the final state budget has no Foundation Aid increase for Guilderland. Also, expenditure-driven aid is down by $68,500, Sanders reported.

The district further has decided not to dip into its fund balance to the extent it had planned with the March 10 superintendent’s budget. “We have a great deal of uncertainty right now,” said Sanders, speculating that there “could be several years of difficult times.”

Adding to the uncertainty is not fully grasping the district’s current costs. With the schools closed until at least April 29, staff and faculty are all being paid. The only savings in salary is for substitute teachers, who are not being called in, Sanders said.

However, the district has spent much more than usual on cleaning supplies and maintenance. John Rizzo is doing an analysis, Sanders said, adding, “We don’t have a normal situation going forward.”

Like Wiles, Sanders said, “The following year could be worse.”

Board member Benjamin Goes asked his colleagues if any of them felt, as had been brought up at the March 10 budget presentation, the district should go past the levy limit, requiring a 60-percent vote to pass. This year’s $102 million Guilderland schools budget was passed by just over 66 percent. 

Goes got a resounding “no” from the other board members who cited the current hardships in the community with closed businesses and people out of work.

“So how do we feel about going right up to that 2.25-percent?” asked Goes, arguing that the board could be “proactive” in making more cuts now. “Do we want to go right up to the last dollar of allowable tax increases?” he asked.

“Our kids are our future,” responded Board Vice President Barbara Fraterrigo, stating that, although she was comfortable for this year, she is concerned about future years if less tax money comes to Albany.

The current proposal does “a pretty good job” of keeping programming, and “thinking about students first,” said board President Seema Rivera although she, too, expressed concerns about the future.

“How long can we sustain all of our programming?” asked Goes.

“I think it’s impossible to know that,” said Wiles.

She noted that contributions to the retirement system depend on the stock market; if the market does well, schools pay less. Wiles described the stock market now as “a roller coaster.”

“I’m personally not ready to hazard a guess on how long we can maintain everything,” Wiles said.

Sanders echoed her thoughts, saying there is no way of knowing how long the pandemic will last nor when the economy will recover.

Proposed cuts

On March 10, Wiles had presented a budget that involved cutting about six positions; the current plan calls for a total of 13 posts to be cut. Wiles said there are few retirements this year so not all of the cuts would be through attrition.

The original cuts were for these posts: an elementary reading teacher, half of a special-education teaching post, half of a middle-school account clerk post, an occupational therapist, and a district-office clerical worker.

Cut posts at the high school in the original draft were for a school counselor, and a math and science teaching assistant as well as a tenth of a health-teacher post and a tenth of a physical education teaching post.

At Thursday’s workshop, Wiles listed the planned changes at the elementary level, the middle school, the high school, and across the district.

For the Guilderland’s five elementary schools, class sizes would be increased by one student at each level. For kindergarten through second grade, classes now each have 18 to 23 students; next year the upper limit would be 24. For third through fifth grades, classes now have 21 to 25; the upper limit next year would be 26.

This would mean eight fewer elementary sections. The plan would also result in partial reductions for the staff teaching art, music, and physical education.

Wiles noted that there are no national guidelines for class size and said that, within the Suburban Council, many districts have larger class sizes than Guilderland. She gave North Colonie as an example, saying its enrollment had grown faster than its classroom space.

At Farnsworth Middle School, class sizes for special-area classes — such as art, music, health, physical education, technology, and family and consumer science — would increase to what they are for core classes.

Also, paid advisors for the Ski and Snowboard Club would be eliminated as would the Strive for Success program, which Wiles said struggled to recruit and retain at-risk students. And two-tenths of a post for a Spanish teacher would be cut as class sizes become larger.

At the high school, unassigned teaching-assistant positions would be cut.

Districtwide, $10,000 would be cut from the fund for musical-instrument replacement and three assistant coaching positions would be cut — for boys’ and girls’ junior-varsity lacrosse, and for gymnastics. Wiles noted there are only four gymnastics teams remaining in the section.

Fraterrigo suggested eliminating gymnastics rather than having a gymnast hurt. Regan Johnson, who oversees athletic programs, said someone would spot gymnasts.

He also said Guilderland has independent sports booster clubs unlike some districts that have a single booster club for all sports. He added that it is not ideal to have coaching costs passed on to booster clubs.

At the April 7 board meeting, Fraterrigo said she in no way advocated eliminating the gymnastics team; rather, she hoped $3,500 could be found for an assistant coach to guarantee the gymnasts’ safety.

“The kids have worked their tails off for years and years,” Fraterrigo said.

Rivera said on April 7 that she appreciated the reasoning given in an email sent by the father of a gymnast; he also pointed out it’s an all-female team, she said.

At the April 2 workshop, Fraterrigo also asked about eliminating stipends for all club advisors, and using volunteers instead.

“I’m fearful we’re going to be eating into that fund balance like crazy,” she said.

Also, a maintenance post would be cut, some equipment repair would be delayed, and required data-privacy protocols would be handled by existing staff.

On transportation, a consultant has proposed a way to have five fewer bus runs although this hasn’t been finalized. Wiles said that the $64,000 question is: “Is there extra space so we could have fewer routes?” She added, “We’ve been in transportation limbo for a long time.”

The district had been working toward a later start time for high school but this looks unlikely for next year. Wiles said that the Board of Cooperative Educational Services is not changing its start time. She also said both Bethlehem and Niskayuna are poised to move to an earlier high school start time and that, if enough schools with students taking BOCES Career and Technical Education courses, it may switch, too.

At the April 7 meeting, Wiles said that she along with Sanders and the director and assistant director of transportation would speak with the consultants the next day. Wiles also said that the board’s Communications Committee would be discussing “strategies to involve the school community” in a discussion on the matter.