JAMESTOWN – Jamestown Public School officials have found a way to create a 2013-14 Budget for next year that doesn’t have any layoffs, nor does it raise taxes.
Tuesday night, the Jamestown School Board crunched the numbers with Jamestown School Superintendent Daniel “Deke” Kathman and Assistant Superintendent for administration Dale Weatherlow. Heading into this week, the district was facing over a $1,830,000 budget gap for next year, and it appeared it would have to turn to layoffs or even a tax increase in order to balance the budget. However, Kathman and Weatherlow left no rock unturned and were able to avoid both.
Prior to the meeting, school officials were able to free up $254,000 from the school’s Students With Disabilities BOCES program, by removing some students from the program and entering them back into classes at JHS. That left them with a $1,577,000 budget gap to close during Tuesday night’s meeting.
The single biggest tool the district had to help close the gap was a pension deferment option – also known as “Pension Smoothing” – offered by the state. The school board made the decision to opt into the plan, which would allow Jamestown to freeze its pension contribution for next year at 14 percent, rather than seeing it go up to 16.25 percent. As a result, the district was able to reapply $656,000 to other areas of the budget. In exchange, the district will have to contribute that amount to the state pension system in future years, either paying it all back next year or spreading it out for up to seven years.
And the school board decided to use an additional $145,000 from the district’s appropriated fund balance and apply it toward the spending plan – although Weatherlow advised it was unwise to use anymore money from that “Rainy Day” fund.
The adjustments left the district with a $775,000 gap, which will be closed through a series budget cuts that included vehicle and equipment purchases. The board was against any tax increase to help close the gap.
CONSIDERING POSITION CUTS & LAYOFFS
Among the options the school board had to consider in adjusting the budget was raising taxes and/or cutting the equivalent of 10 full-time teacher positions along with 3.5 staff positions. While four-and-a-half of those positions would come through attrition, the remainder would have had to be through layoffs. Both Kathman and the school board were relieved to see that no layoffs and no tax increase would be necessary.
“In their decision making tonight, they reduced a list of $1.5 million of cuts in half. And the vast majority, if not all the instructional positions that were featured on that list are being pulled off,” Kathman said, adding, “It’s a great day.”
Prior to the recent spring break, Kathman was hoping the state’s final budget would provide relief in the form of more school funding for Jamestown. However, when the final total was announced, Jamestown learned that would be getting just over $130,000 more in aid than what had been proposed in the governor’s budget. Kathman said he was very upset upon learning the district would not get nearly as much aid as it needed.
“Surprised is not nearly adequate to describe my emotion,” he said. “I was certainly that. I was disgusted. We had, yet again, another process followed by the decision makers, the highest levels of government, who continued an inequitable system of distributing student aid to its districts. Disgusting.”
As for any idea of a tax increase, School board president Joe DiMaio said it was much a given that only after all other options are exhausted would a tax increase even be considered.
“If you remember a few years ago we tried to raise taxes,” DiMaio explained. “In the first year that this hit we really got crushed. We said ‘five percent’ and we [tried to get it passed through] and the public told us under no circumstances would this be acceptable. The consequences of having a budget voted own by the public affect you financially, with moral, and all kinds of stuff, so we said we’d rather take a shot at what we’re doing here, and keep it that way.”
Upon learning that no layoffs would be necessary, Jamestown Teachers Association President Chris Riley said he was obviously relieved.
“It has been stressful. We’re very, very appreciative of to both the superintendent, the assistant superintendent and the board for their decisions. We think they are the right decisions and as I said, we are very appreciative.”
Last night’s meeting was attended by more than 50 people, most of whom were members of the Jamestown school system faculty and staff.
The final budget numbers will be completed in the coming weeks and the board will act on the spending plan during its April 22 meeting. A public hearing on the spending plan will be May 14 at Persell School and the budget vote will be May 21.
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