GCSD board is unanimous on $93.7M budget

GUILDERLAND — After months of deliberation, the school board on Tuesday unanimously adopted a $93,689,600 budget proposal for next year. The public has its say on May 19.

At that time, district residents will also elect three board members from a field of five.

“We actually have an election this year,” said Board President Barbara Fraterrigo in announcing the candidates, alluding to smaller fields in recent years.

Incumbents Catherine Barber, and Christine Hayes — each of whom hesitated to announce their bids for re-election — will run to keep their unpaid posts. They will be challenged by Timothy Burke, Nicholas Fahrenkopf, and Seema Rivera, each making a first run for the Guilderland School Board. Terms, which start in July, last for three years.

Incumbent Jennifer Charron, who had submitted a petition and whose name was announced as a candidate for re-election at Tuesday’s meeting, decided to withdraw from the race on Wednesday. She served one term on the board.

“I wanted to stay on the board for all the idealistic things we have planned,” Charron told The Enterprise Wednesday evening. She said, since her husband died two years ago, she has had to devote much time to dealing with his “complex estate” and that her children will always come first.

“After last night’s board meeting, my blood pressure spiked again,” Charron said, leading to her decision to withdraw from the race.

However, Charron went on, she will continue her work on both the recycling and building repurposing task forces as well as on helping to “create an endowment” for the district. “I’m going to focus my efforts on finding alternative revenue sources,” she said.

At Tuesday’s meeting, only one adjustment was made to the budget plan the board considered in a workshop last week after Guilderland received an extra $1.4 million in state aid, with $740,000 going into savings and roughly $374,000 being added to expenses.

Last week, board members had recommended taking away one unassigned teaching post, reducing the number from five to four, for a savings of $78,000. The unassigned teaching posts are used as needs arise. This week, Superintendent Marie Wiles said eight-tenths of a teaching post had been added because of a concern board member Catherine Barber had raised about large high school classes.

Elementary school music teacher Kerry Dineen on Tuesday highlighted for the board some potentially large elementary class sizes, which made board members decide to add a full rather than a partial teaching post, for a cost of $78,000.

“If you don’t use it, it’s still going back into your fund balance,” said Fraterrigo, echoing Dineen’s sentiments.

The addition leaves the budget proposal $18,127 under the state-set tax levy limit, “which should be adequate,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders. If the budget were to go over the levy limit, 60 percent of voters would have to approve it to pass it. Under the levy limit, a simple majority of 50 percent is needed.

“The only other way to add to the budget would be to subtract from the fund balance,” said Fraterrigo.

“Or take something out,” said several board members, in spontaneous unison.

The board decided not to make any other changes.

The vast majority of the district is in the town of Guilderland where residents paid $21.84 per $1,000 of assessed valuation in school taxes this year. With the $93.7 million budget, Sanders estimates Guilderland residents would pay $22.30 per $1,000.

Sanders also made these estimates for The Enterprise on Wednesday: Bethlehem residents would pay $20.07 per $1,000; New Scotland residents would pay $20.07; and residents of Knox, which hasn’t revalued properties in years, would pay $32.37 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

“The projected tax rates result in an estimated tax-rate increase of 2.12 percent for district residents,” Sanders stated.

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Heard from Julia Hotmer Drao concerns about drug use among students. “There are things that lead to heroin,” she said, referring to smoking marijuana or taking drugs from a parent’s medicine cabinet. “These things are happening in our schools.” She also said, “We need to help support our students when coping with peer pressure”;

— Heard from Wiles that close to 300 people, mostly teachers, came to an April 15 “Meet Your Legislator” event at the high school. Wiles said Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy and a representative from Senator George Amedore’s office, Kaitlyn MacLeod, were “extremely gracious listeners” as they heard concerns about changes the governor is pushing with tenure and teacher evaluation;

— Learned that subgroups in a task force to consider alternative uses of excess space in the schools are overlapping in their work and will have another general meeting to coordinate their efforts. A report is due to the school board in June;

— Heard that Guilderland’s athletic director, Regan Johnson, will be honored on May 4 as the Professional of the Year by the New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance;

— Heard a report from Wiles on the annual meeting between school board members and trustees of the Guilderland Public Library;

— Learned that school will be recessed on May 22;

— Heard praise for Guilderland’s nurses as National School Nurse Day approaches on May 6. “They do an awesome job,” said Wiles;

— Agreed to hold a board retreat to set goals and priorities for the coming year on July 2, the day after the board re-organizational meeting. Charron wants to consider board protocols as well, saying, “We have nothing in writing.” Board member Colleen O’Connell said protocol was “not a proper topic for a retreat” and also said, “I’ve yet to find a retreat that is worthwhile”;

— Approved an internship agreement for speech and language therapy with the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh;

— Approved a service agreement with the Northeast Parent and Child Society for a special-needs student;

— Approved changes to a scholarship provided by the Altamont High School Alumni Association that will now include excellence in science and in vocational training as well as in English;

— Approved a field trip to Montreal and Quebec City in Canada from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 with Christine Rant as the advisor. “These field trips are getting overly ambitious,” said O’Connell, suggesting too many places were visited in too short of a time. Charron said that students learning to speak French might benefit from a trip to Paris, but not Quebec. “Sending them to Canada, it’s a different language,” she said. “It’s close enough,” responded board member Gloria Towle-Hilt;

— Approved continuation of a program that puts a Guilderland Police officer in the schools; the post is currently filled by Officer Nick Ingle. For 2015-16, if the budget passes, the salary would be $29,884; it would increase 2.5 percent the following year, and would not exceed $32,507 in 2017-18.

Board Vice President Allan Simpson asserted that agreeing to a 3-percent raise would be “pretty generous.” Wiles responded the pay is linked to town negotiations with the police union. “The town is really carrying the brunt,” she said;

— Approved the administrative budget for the Capital Region Board of Cooperative Educational Services, which increased 4.22 percent, to $327,770. O’Connell said the increase was driven by retiree health benefits; and

— Adopted policies on social service dogs and on attendance.

More Guilderland News

  • Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber described the building as being “frozen in time” and said he’d also like to acquire from the district the “big pot-belly stove” and the original desks and chairs that had been in the school until recent years because he’d like to “recreate what a school looked like at that time.”

  • “We need housing and you don’t, in my opinion, want people who aren’t going to live in a house to own a house and then just rent it out short-term a week at a time, a weekend at a time, a wedding at a time,” said Robert Randall at the public hearing. “The people living next to them no longer have a neighbor; they have strangers living next to them.”

  • Altamont’s tax rate for next year is set to increase from $2.14 per $1,000 of assessed value to $2.18 per $1,000. 

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