Taxes up 1.2 percent
School board uses $375K of huge budget surplus to ease burden



GUILDERLAND — School taxes for Guilderland residents will go up just 1.2 percent this year, half the increase predicted when voters passed an $82 million budget in May.

The school board was split Tuesday night with some members wanting to eliminate a tax increase altogether.

The district had $2 million left from last year’s $79 million budget and then got a surplus of $2.1 million from several other sources — earnings from increased interest, and state aid from previous years as well as from the past year, particularly from reviewing aid for special education, for which the district had hired a consultant.
"Through good luck and good management, we have more money left over at the end of the year than we’re supposed to," said board President Richard Weisz.

State law limits school districts to 3 percent of their budgets being held in a fund balance; next year, that limit will rise to 4 percent.
Neil Sanders, the district’s assistant superintendent for business, recommended the board put $1.9 million into capital reserve in anticipation of a $27 million bond project to upgrade the district’s five elementary schools, improve technology and security, and build new district offices at the high school. The board is slated to vote on that plan in September and it will go to public vote in November. (For a full account of the $27 million project, go to [email protected], and look under "archives" for July 12, 2007.)

If the bond passes, Sanders said, the $1.9 million would translate into a savings of $120 per year for the owner of an $180,000 home in Guilderland, the average assessment.

Sanders also recommended $490,000 be put in reserve accounts, most likely for tax cases and for the retirement system.

And Sanders recommended $375,000 be used to lower the tax rate.

Ultimately, after some clashing views were expressed, the board voted, 7 to 2, to use $375,000 of the excess to lower taxes.
Peter Golden, who voted against Sanders’s plan, said of the surplus, "It’s not savings. We didn’t earn this money. This is money we told people we needed and we didn’t need it." Golden wanted to further ease the tax burden.
"I have a problem...only returning $375,000," said Hy Dubowsky, who also voted against the plan. He advocated lowering the tax rate further. "In good times, we should share it," said Dubowsky. "It’s their money," he said of the taxpayers.
"It all has to be approved by taxpayers who vote," countered board member Cathy Barber.
"We’re being asked to determine whether this year’s taxpayers get full benefit...or it’s shared over the next few years," said Weisz. He said he’d be more concerned about returning all of it to the taxpayers if it weren’t for needed building repairs.

Vice President John Dornbush said that, if more were taken out of the fund balance, there could be spikes in the tax rate in future years.
"You’ll start seeing double-digit increases, like some of the other districts around here," he said.
"Aren’t we taking the decision-making power away from the people"" asked board member Gloria Towle-Hilt.
"We’re the elected representatives...," said Dornbush. "We make the decision."
"Surplus is like a four-letter word here," said board member Colleen O’Connell who urged the board to be thankful it had a surplus instead of a deficit.

Ultimately, Barber, Dornbush, Denise Eisele, Barbara Fraterrigo, O’Connell, Towle-Hilt, and Weisz voted to use $375,000 of the surplus to lower taxes.

This means Guilderland residents will pay $19.16 per $1,000 of assessed value, a 1.2-percent increase over last year; Bethlehem residents will pay $16.67, a 4.7-percent increase, New Scotland residents will pay $16.22, a 1.9-percent increase; and Knox residents will pay $28.01, an increase of 14.4 percent.

Eisele expressed concern for school district residents in towns outside of Guilderland whose increases are higher. The Guilderland School District doesn’t follow town lines; small parts of the neighboring towns of Bethlehem, New Scotland, and Knox are part of the district.
"Our personal taxes went up over $300 a month," said Eisele.

Superintendent Gregory Aidala said that the focus was on Guilderland residents since Guilderland makes up 92 to 93 percent of the assessed value within the school district while Bethlehem makes up 6 percent and New Scotland and Knox combined make up around 1 percent.

The state sets equalization rates so that residents in the same school district who live in towns with different assessing systems pay a fair amount. The tax rolls in Knox, for example, are skewed because the town hasn’t recently reassessed property while the town of Guilderland has; the equalization rate accounts for that.
"We underspent our budget this past year," said Aidala. "That’s always our goal...If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, we have to be less conservative," he said of estimating revenues.

Other business
In other business, the school board:

— Heard from Sanders that the library tax rates were finalized. The Guilderland Public Library follows school-district boundaries but has its own elected governing board.

Voters passed a $2.6 million library budget in May. Tax rates for next year are 89 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for Guilderland residents, a 4.6-percent increase over last year; 78 cents for Bethlehem, an 8.2-percent increase; 75 cents for New Scotland, a 5.3-percent increase; and $1.30 for Knox, an 18.2-percent increase;
— Heard the schedule for next week’s "official wind-down of summer" from Aidala, beginning with new-staff orientation on Aug. 30 and ending with the first full day of classes on Sept. 6.

The district has 49 new teachers, an interim principal at the high school, and its first technology supervisor. (See related story.)

The high school has 13 new teachers, the middle school has 16, and the elementary schools have 20, Aidala said. Twenty-eight of the new teachers are long-term leave replacements.
"We have a young staff with many maternity-type of leaves," he said.
Aidala called the new school year "a source of great optimism";

— Approved a BOCES consultant agreement for Guilderland’s hosting the Summer 2007 Reading and Writing Institute;

— Approved athletic trainer services for three years from Thomas Nicolla Consulting Service for $27,000 a year;

— Approved bid awards for music equipment to eight low bidders, totaling $26,310.08 and for graphing calculators to EAI Education for $14,374.50, the lowest of five bidders.
Weisz called the calculators for middle-school students "another unfunded state mandate."
Fraterrigo said it was "a terrible injustice" to students whose parents couldn’t afford them and Aidala assured the board that students "in hardship cases" could take the calculators home to use;

— Extended the contract of Bell’s Auto Driving School for behind-the-wheel driver education this year for $290 per student and appointed Roderick MacDonald as the in-class instructor for driver education, to be paid $47 per hour;

— Approved an inter-municipal agreement with the Rensselaer-Columbia-Green BOCES for internal auditing this year;
— Heard an objection from O’Connell that the board’s business-practices committee was "micro-managing" by reviewing the proposal for the $27 million facilities project "if four people in a room are going to undo what a whole community did."
"We’re just going to try to generate questions," said Golden, who chairs the committee.
"I think it undermines a district-wide committee," said O’Connell who served on the facilities committee which proposed the project.
"Someone told me many years ago, ‘Measure twice, cut once,’" said Dubowsky, adding, "I’m sure this will absolutely go forward."

The board is slated to decide at its next meting, Sept. 11, on putting the project up for vote in November; and

— Met in closed session to review the new superintendent’s contract and to discuss a teacher.
Aidala said yesterday that no actions were taken after the executive session. Asked if the board had chosen a superintendent since it was reviewing a contract, Adiala, who is retiring in the fall, said, "It’s getting close."