70°
CROTON-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. The Croton-Harmon Board of Education began piecing together the budget puzzle to a packed community room in the high school. Nearly 70 people showed up to hear more deliberation on possible cuts to the school budget and the results of last weeks World Café.
Every single thing that gets cut in this school district will have a consequence, said Edward Fuhrman, superintendent of Croton Harmon schools. He said that more than 30 pages of comments were taken at the World Café and that more than 100 people attended.
Some important tenants of education to the community, as interpreted and condensed by Fuhrman, were that class size and academics were important to the community, as were arts education, sports programming for younger students, seeking continued relief from mandates and developing a strategy to use outside funding.
Mondays meeting, which represented the follow-up to the World Café, was also heavily attended, with standing room only left by the time the meeting began. Some notable tentative savings decisions included two full-time teachers at Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary at $300,000, $82,285 to the operations and maintenance budget and $91,319 in the technology budget, for a total savings of $805,089.
Heavily debated cuts included a long list from which the district needed to find $395,355 in savings. A list of possible reductions included options such as cutting a physical education teacher at $122,869, an assistant principal at $145,000, a music teacher at $100,265 or assistant athletic coaches at $11,004, among more than a dozen options total.
You cant take what works in a for-profit, you cant take that and apply it to a school district, said Andrea Furey, school board vice president.
As board members weighed the impact of various budgeting scenarios, the one consistent theme was a cry for mandate relief.
Unless you cry loudly, theyre not going to do a thing, theyre waiting for you, said Karen Zevin, school board president. She said that despite protestations by the board, she believed elected officials would not take action on unfunded mandates until they heard from voters. If she got a report card for dealing with unfunded mandates, shed get an F, said Zevin about New York State Assembly member Sandy Galef (D-Ossining).
Click here to follow Daily Voice Cortlandt and receive free news updates.
