To the Editor:
I read last week’s editorial about the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school budget revote with great disappointment and some surprise [“Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board is taking a ‘helluva gamble’,” June 6, 2024].

In the editorial, you indicate that there has not been an organized anti-budget  movement in the Hilltowns. The fact of the matter is every school budget is met with displeasure by a group of anti-tax, anti-public school individuals who take to Facebook to spread misinformation and fear about the proposed spending plan, regardless of what it includes.

We have a large contingency of homeschoolers in this district who are vocal about their objections to public schools and, while they have the right to educate their children however they see fit, they do not have the right to dismantle school budgets and decimate programming for the other children in our community.

Currently, there is a post circulating on Facebook by these very individuals with false and misleading information about the budget, saying that, for instance, the superintendent is receiving a $25,000 raise for this position (Untrue. There is actually a cost-savings realized here as the new superintendent will make considerably less than the outgoing superintendent. As the old saying goes, they are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.)

The reality is that the BKW School Board, working in concert with the administration and with input from the teaching staff, has built a strong educational program at BKW that is complemented by thoughtful and innovative extracurriculars that everyone in the district has access to thanks to free after-school care and the daily late buses.

Using modest spending increases (+2.6% in 2018, +2.7% in 2019, -1.8% in 2020, +0.98% in 2021, +4.29% in 2022, 3.86% in 2023, and 2.7% in 2024) that are offset by modest tax increases (+1% in 2018, +0.5% in 2019, -1.0% in 2020, -2% in 2021, -0.5% in 2022, +2.3% in 2023, and +5.09% in 2024) including some years’ givebacks from the district when times were tightest, the district has been able to assemble a program that beautifully meets the students and families in this community.

Up until this year, state aid has supplemented the school budget and offset costs to individual taxpayers quite seamlessly. This year, however, due to the state’s inflation protections being rescinded (they had to cut costs somewhere) we are dealing with a $242,000 shortfall in aid (or 2.09% less than last year).

While school spending is increasing by just 2.77% this year, very much in line with previous year’s spending trends, the district has proposed a 5.09% tax increase. Why? The 5.09% tax increase is a direct result of this shortfall in state aid (2.77 + 2.09).

This shortfall is not … a result of declining enrollment — not yet — although that is under study currently, and we have every expectation that it will become an issue in future school budgets and could even lead to a consolidated behemoth school district, as we have already witnessed happen to so many other rural areas of New York.

I was also disappointed by your reassertion that families on this Hill cannot afford this increase (that is up to families to decide at the ballot box) and that somehow grants should cover up the deficit. While retired teacher Helen Lounsbury’s 20-year-old grant program was, in its time, an admirable way to supplement school programming, it is neither fair, nor realistic to expect today's teachers, on top of their myriad of other responsibilities, to spend additional time crafting grant applications to fund school programs for our students.

Additionally, grant funding is not a reliable or sustainable funding solution for our schools. And while Lounsbury is to be commended for her accomplishments, her vision of how public schools should run is at odds with both what parents are asking for, and what research has shown to be effective.

Small class sizes are a key element of BKW’s success story. While other districts suffered significant learning loss during and following COVID, our district has been largely insulated from those effects due to the strong teaching staff, and the high teacher-student ratio in our classrooms.

In just the last 10 years, our district has made sizable progress. Through careful monitoring of our finances, good hiring practices, and strategic allocation of resources, this district has managed to build a program that is the envy of other districts our size.

You talked in your editorial, about the obligation that the school board has to taxpayers, but you neglected to talk about the obligations that our board has to the students and families they serve. In the 2024-25 budget proposal, the board has put forward a budget that maintains those standards for excellent education, guarantees students safety, and provides for a myriad of extracurricular opportunities that complement students’ academic and personal growth.

While no one wants higher taxes, it's hard to argue that the spending package put before the voters isn't meeting the needs of the community, and maybe more importantly, the needs of our students. 

If the budget is voted down on June 18, the school board will need to cut $564,000 from that proposed spending package. They have already identified the areas that would be cut, including the late bus that enables most students to participate in after-school activities, the after-school activities themselves, including clubs like Future Farmers of America, esports, 4-H, jazz band, the school musical, and some, or all, of the sports. 

They have also included the school resource officer as a position that would be cut, as part of this new contingency budget. As a parent with students in the school, I am apprehensive about the idea of eliminating our safety officer from campus.

We live 20 minutes from the nearest substation, and every time we see another headline about a school shooting, the presence of our SRO on campus provides me with some limited degree of comfort. 

The contingency budget would also require the elimination of two full-time teachers at the elementary level and three full-time aids or teaching assistants, thus increasing class sizes and lowering classroom support — again, at odds with what has worked for us in the past and what research shows to be important for our students’ academic growth. 

Because I don't want any of these things to be cut, and because neither myself nor the public will have input into what stays and what goes once we move to a contingency budget, I am voting in favor of the school budget on June 18, and I encourage other voters to do the same.

Paul Gumpper

BKW parent

Editor’s note: Paul Gumpper is the husband of Molly Belmont, who organized a letter-writing campaign for the Berne-Knox-Westerlo PTA.