VOORHEESVILLE — On May 16 school district residents will be voting on a $20 million budget, two propositions, and electing one candidate out of two for a spot on the school board.

The district predicts a tax levy increase of 3.3 percent, adjusted down because of increased state aid.

Voters will also decide on a $190,000 high-school roofing project and on a $224,300 proposition to buy three buses.

School board President Joseph Pofit, after eight years on the board, is running for another five-year term. He is being challenged by Gary Hubert, who frequently attends board meetings.

Hubert and his wife, Portia, have lived in Salem Hills for 28 years; they have two children who have graduated from Voorheesville. He had worked at the Schenectady Association for Retarded Citizens for 15-and-a-half years, and now works for Brigar Inc., a direct-marketing company where he works with high-speed digital images and the printing of them. So, Hubert said, he has experience in both human services and computer technology.

Pofit and his wife, Martha, live on New Scotland Road next to the commercial corridor. He has daughters who attend Voorheesville. He works for Catholic Charities developing senior housing, assisted living, and nursing homes; he deals with the planning and financing of these programs for 14 counties.

Hubert is interested in being hands-on in curriculum review and development in the upcoming year, to ensure an emphasis on curriculum for all students’ varying academic needs.
He is also campaigning on having "more effective communication with the public," Hubert said.

Pofit is excited about the upcoming curriculum development too, which is one of the reasons he favored hiring Superintendent Linda Langevin, because this is one of her strengths, he said. Pofit said he has an interest in building an academic program that transitions easily from each year to the next. Fortunately the district has the best teachers possible, Pofit said, and there is already inter-communication between the grades.
Pofit also has the goal of "bringing everybody on the board up to a level of comfort with the numbers," he said of the district’s budget and financial management.

Adjusted tax levy

The state legislature passed a budget with more school aid than the governors proposal.

At the time the school board approved the Voorheesville budget, a few weeks ago, most board members said if the district received extra aid they wanted to return dollars back to the taxpayers.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Sarita Winchell said this week, compared to this year, Voorheesville is getting $187,700 more in aid. State aid for the 2006-07 budget will be $5,590,000.

The tax levy increase will be 3.29 percent, Winchell said, rather than the 3.67 percent as previously reported, because the amount of money to be raised through local taxs has decreased.
The total budget is a 4-percent increase over this year’s, which the administration and school bard members have called "bare bones" and "conservative."

If voters defeat the budget, Langevin said the district will go to a contingency with a cap set at 4 percent by the state.

The proposed budget is $20,098,500 and the contingency cap would be at $20,098,889 — only about $400 more. However, with a contingency-cap budget, some items are not allowed to be included, such as technology and new equipment.

The school would have to declare what equipment is educationally necessary and lose the rest, Winchell said. So passing the budget is extremely important, she said. The school district does not get to use more money with a contingency, Winchell said. When the items classified as educationally unnecessary are removed from the proposed budget, then those dollars will then also removed from the total budget, she said.

Propositions

In the fall, contracted engineers introduced to the board a $4 million to $5 million construction plan for repairs, upgrades, and maintenance to both the elementary school and high school. The bulk of the project $3 million to $4 million, is for the elementary school.

Replacing all the unit ventilators at the elementary school to improve air quality, air circulation and heating is projected to cost $1 million. Other tasks include the removal of floor tiles, and solving underground water leaks.

The engineers recommended tackling a number of repairs this summer — re-constructing the high-school tennis courts, replacing some of the flooring at the elementary school, and replacing roofing at the high school.

The school board has chosen only to move forward on the roofing project, putting up a $190,000 proposition to replace sections of the roof.

By voter approval last May, $500,000 was set aside in a capital reserve fund. For this roofing project, the plan is to use surplus funds from the general fund balance and, if needed pay the balance out of the capital reserve fund.

There will be no new money collected from the taxpayers for this project, Winchell said.

Also, State aid will return 64 percent of the project cost, leaving the local share at $68,400, Winchell said. She told The Enterprise she believes most of that money can be paid from the fund balance.
Winchell does not anticipate creating another capital reserve fund for a while because in order to do that there has to be extra money, and next year’s budget, "is extremely tight," she said.

The rest of the building projects proposed by the engineers for phase one have been postponed, Winchell said.

The roof has to be done because of timing, Winchell said. The work has to be done in the spring and summer before fall.
"There are several places in the high-school building where the roof is severely leaking," said school board member Richard Brackett, who is on the building and grounds sub-committee. It would cost $70,000 to repair it and that would only last one year. That would be like "trying to put a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound," he said.
"Spending $190,000 to replace the roof comes with a 20-year warranty," he said. The current roof warranty ran out four years ago, he said.

Board member David Gibson recommends, for the future, that the board keep a strict record and monitor the time line of all warranties, to make sure any repairs that fall under a warranty be completed while still covered.

Board member James Coffin, who is also on the building committee, said the leaking in the roof is not in a single area but scattered. Water has gotten in under the roof and seeped into the insulation, he said. There is 12,000 square feet of roofing and, with moisture problems, water flow can’t be identified, Coffin said.
"Replacement is the key with a nice warranty," Coffin said.

It’s damage- control time, now, he said, to avoid further damage, and the correct time to do roofing is in the summer, he said.

Voters will also decide on a bus proposition. The school is on a long-term plan of buying buses in increments.

This year, the district wants to purchase two 60-passenger buses, and one 19-passenger wheelchair accessible bus. The district currently does not have a bus to accommodate children in wheelchairs, but now has an elementary-school student with this need. The proposition states that the district will buy these buses, spending a maximum of $224,300.