Some Highlights of the March 10t

Superintendent Presents Final Recommended Budget of $112.3M

The March 17th BOE meeting was attended by one concerned taxpayer and one other parent. The Superintendent made his final recommendation for the SY 04-05 budget. His recommendation, the same as his initial recommendation at last week's public budget hearing, calls for a budget of $112,277,831 and for a recommendation of a bus bond in the amount of $2,115,000. The board of education will adopt a final budget to present to the voters at their April 14th meeting. Anyone with concerns or questions about the budget should contact a board member.

You can take a closer look at all the budgets presented this year. See how we added up the budget figures presented so far. Please let us know if we missed something.

Some Highlights of the March 10th BOE Meeting

Our Letter about NY's Open Meetings Law and Video Taping Meetings

Aside from the superintendents preliminary budget recommendation there were several important parts that we were interested in. We wrote a letter to the board expecting it to be read during the "Communications" agenda item as we have witnessed in meetings past. Unfortunately Board President Claire Perez chose not to have the letter read. We have included it here because we know that it will not be attached to minutes posted to their website. We wrote a letter about NY's Open Meetings Law and video taping all public board meetings. Mrs. Perez stated the subject of our letter without details, that they will have the district's lawyer look into the law, and that the board discussed and voted on video taping meetings some 2 1/2 or 3 years ago and decided not to do that. We were somewhat disappointed.

The Meeting was Video Taped

We taped the meeting since the board has decided not to do so themselves. We believe that the Town of Monroe will air the tape on their public access channel. Our thanks to Supervisor Sandy Leonard. We hope that someone from the town's of Blooming Grove, Woodbury, Chester, and Tuxedo, will be willing to air the unedited tape on their town's public access channel. If you know who we might talk with to accomplish this please email us as soon as possible so as many concerned taxpayers as possible can view the meetings.

Several Concerned Taxpayers and Residents Spoke

Several people spoke about a variety of issues. Of particular note was that accolades were given about the music programs and the Gifted and Talented program. Both of these areas are especially successful in our district. We fully support not only the music program but all arts programs as well as our programs for the Gifted and Talented but also our special ed programs. These areas truly help make this district a very desirable place to bring your children.

One of our founding members, John Collins, spoke about the policies of providing health care to district employees. His prepared statement can be seen here. Note that his statement was given (and he has always given) to the board but it is never included in minutes posted to their website. According to a survey conducted for the Association of School Business Officials International about health care costs our districts seems to be in the minority in a number of areas. Their press release can be seen here. The survey results can be seen here. Please take a look for yourself. One major area which we feel our district could do better in is the amount of health care premiums paid by employees. The survey indicates that paying the full cost of premiums is the exception but in our district we pay a significantly large portion of the premium, and in many employee groups we pay 100% of it. In light of the generous raises given over the past few years for employees who do not contribute to their health care premiums we think some change is needed. If you think so too, please let the board know of your concerns. Education Week on the Web wrote an article based on the survey. This is a great site with articles about all facets of education. Their article, titled "Health Costs Strain School Budgets" can be seen after a free registration on their site.

Previous Home Page News From The March 10th Meeting

The Monroe-Woodbury Board of Education was presented with the personnel budget of $84,167,716, an 9.96% increase over this years contingent budget. "The FRINGE BENEFITS package currently reflects an increase." and "Retirement system contributions and the health plan are the largest portions of this budget category." were some of the things told the board by Mr. Moscati, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources.

After this last budget presentation the superintendent presented his preliminary budget recommendation to the board. He stated that initially the recommendation was to be $115M but that he trimmed it to $112M, a $9,000,000 rise from this year, to be more palatable. His actual figures were not available to the public and I didn't take any notes so these are round figures. Although the actual rise is around 9% he stated that conservatively the tax levy impact would be just 5.9%.