A group of residents sitting around a board-room table Monday agreed on a goal: prevent the closing of a Rondout Valley elementary school.
The parents, taxpayers and teachers want to create watchdog committees, drill down into the budget and help the district come up with another scenario. Faced with a $5.6 million budget gap and declining enrollment, the school board announced last month that a school closing is likely.
Meeting host and Pinegrove Ranch owner David O'Halloran has already started digging into the numbers. He thinks his business acumen might find some unexpected solutions. One budget item jumped out at him right away: Every year, the school district budgets $12,000 for music supplies. The number just seemed too neat to O'Halloran. He asks, do teachers really buy the same amount of sheet music every year?
That sentiment echoes one by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, blasted out to media inboxes everywhere Monday. The state's $10 billion projected budget gap is based on assumptions that all spending remains the same or continues increasing.
And these days, change is the only constant.
Fiscal policy experts for decades have called on governments to take a businesslike approach to budgeting. Cuomo was yelling from that same megaphone Tuesday, saying he's implementing a reality-based approach at the state level. He then announced a 7.3 percent state aid cut for school districts statewide. In Cuomo's "reality," that's only 2.9 percent of overall spending. In Rondout's "reality," it's a 10.3 percent cut in state aid, adding $1.9 million to its budget troubles, according to estimates posted on the state website.
Washingtonville Superintendent Robbie Greene said her district implemented zero-based budgeting about seven years ago and it's changed the way they deliver education.
"Everyone starts with a blank piece of paper. You don't take last year's supply total and add 3 percent on it," Greene said. "If I buy girls' soccer uniforms this year, I don't need those next year."
In an environment where every dollar is sacred and where school communities are at stake, this kind of budgeting is smart. But in what "reality" will accounting changes or cutting administrator salaries save $3.3 million lost to Washingtonville schools in the governor's proposed aid cuts?
Cuomo tried to paint a picture of all New Yorkers sharing the pain in this hard-line budget. But in what "reality" is a 13.3 percent state aid cut to Marlboro schools on an even keel with a 2 percent cut to municipal funding?
Cuomo also talked about unsustainable spending and a cycle of irresponsible budgeting. Maybe that's what going on in Albany, but that's just not the reality I've seen in our local school districts recently.
To his credit, Cuomo didn't say this was going to be easy. He has promised to relieve mandates that drive up education costs. But his speech also glossed over the truth of what he's proposing now: Cuomo's budget guts public education in the Hudson Valley, making it that much harder to save elementary schools. That's the reality.
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