Warwick contemplates closing another school

WARWICK — The Warwick Valley School Board laid out possible options it is exploring, with community input, in order to close a budget shortfall of some $3 million.

The projected 2013-14 budget is just under $84.6 million, with projected revenues of about $81.6 million.

Although nothing has been decided definitively yet, the school board focused on the pros and cons of what closing another school would mean to the community, financially and otherwise, at its second Community Forum on Monday night.

The forum attracted about 75 people from the community, and included concerned parents and business people.

Why close another school?
According to the slideshow presented by Schools Superintendent Dr. Raymond Bryant, lower school tax revenues and higher annual operating costs (including fuel, retirees’ pension and insurance costs); declining student enrollment (Warwick schools are projected to show a reduction of about 150 students for the 2013-24 school year); decreased and uncertain state aid (down about $2.5 million the past four years); and the state school tax levy limit have all created a sort of perfect storm leading to the current budget gap.

The district closed Pine Island Elementary two years ago. If the board votes to close another school, it will not only save money spent on the costs associated with operating a building, but will save educational programs that the community has said are important.

Which school building to close?

At this point, the likely candidate for closure – if the board takes that step – would either be Kings Elementary or Park Avenue Elementary, as the school board believes students from either one of those schools could be readily absorbed by the remaining elementary schools.

As the newest and largest site, Sanfordville Elementary would be immune from closure:

“Closing this building is not feasible,” according to Bryant’s presentation.

Kings v. Park
In a side-by-side comparison of the two facilities, Park Avenue has the newer boiler – but of “lower quality;” the newer roof; is part of the village water system; is in a walkable location; and has an elevator. It also has only one extra classroom, with limited flexibility should student enrollment increase in the future.

By contrast, Kings has the better (but older) boiler; has four to five additional classrooms; has greater capacity in its cafeteria/gym; and could potentially save district taxpayers more than $32,000 a year. It also has the larger parking lot, as well as a bigger playground area.

Both schools are considered equally marketable to potential buyers/renters, as Kings is across from a commercially zoned area, and Park is village-centric.

The projected cost of running Kings for the 2013-14 year is $61,626; for Park, it is $63,558.

Closing Kings, but maintaining the building would cost $10,191; Park would cost $11,463.

Other options?
Other ideas to be explored:

Perhaps moving fifth grade to the middle school, and moving it – and a potentially reclassified-as-elementary sixth grade – to a separate wing;

Adjusting middle school and high school start times by 15 minutes to mesh with St. Stephen’s, so that both groups of students would ride the buses together;

Sharing services with Florida and Greenwood Lake schools.

(For details on how the student numbers would shift under a school closing scenario, please see the WVCSD website, and open the link to the Feb. 11 slideshow presentation.)

Frustration with Albany
Warwick is not alone in its school budget predicament. The New York State School Boards Association warns that perhaps half of New York school districts will be insolvent within the next few years, and schools around the country are facing similar situations.

School board president David Eaton said that the situation in Albany is dismal, based on his discussions with NYSSBA colleagues: “We’re becoming California.”

(California once had some of the best public schools in the country, but due to Proposition 13, a change in the state constitution limited the amount of property taxes that could be raised to fund public education, leading to frequent budget crises and a decline in their school system.)

Yet a common theme expressed by Bryant, the school board and some attendees at Monday night’s meeting is frustration: With Albany, with unfunded mandates (the new rules for teacher evaluations, for instance, costs $250,000), and with the idea of property taxes being the basis for funding public education.

“As long as we’re funding schools on the backs of people who own houses, we’re just kicking the can” down the road, Bryant said. “It’s just not fair.”

Mark Lange, a professional financial advisor, thundered at the board and those in attendance: “We’re talking about the minutiae of pebbles. These are your children… It doesn’t get fixed by making little fixes … tweaks and changes” to the budget.”

He continued: If you don’t get involved, the state dictates to you: It’s time to turn it around. You shouldn’t allow Albany to tell you how much” to spend on education. He urged the community and the school board to “embrace the private side.”

Eaton chastised Lange’s suggestion that the school board adopt a more business-like approach to creating budgets for and funding the schools: “I came from the business world: We’re not a business – our P&Ls don’t look like” the corporate world, and schools can’t operate in the same way corporations do.

Public comment
Vanessa Holland, parent of a Park Avenue first-grader and an incoming Kindergartener, told of her feeling “frustrated” at the first community forum on Feb. 4. She also expressed concern that “everything in the press is about our budget crisis.”

She instead hoped to focus attention on football and other programs available in Warwick’s schools, in order to “market” the district and encourage people to move to the town.

Dr. Kim Sumner Mayer, a Sanfordville parent, mental-health care professional and long-time Warwick resident, praised the board. She said she had not “seen as much transparency in the budget process until the last two years.”

Several other residents made the same comment.

She was also concerned about some of the priorities listed in the survey as “important” versus “essential,” worrying that arts, music and counseling are as vital to well-rounded student development as science, math and technology, saying that the arts helped her as a professional.

Eaton responded: “I don’t think anyone up here (the board members) disagrees with you.”

Parent and resident John Sanford said with regard to moving the fifth graders to the middle school that that’s how it was when he went to the Middle School and “I turned out fine.”

He added that, instead of closing Park or Kings, the board should consider closing Sanfordville because it’s the biggest and newest school and because of its particular frontage. Doing so would enable Park and Kings students to stay in their neighborhood schools, and would be a more attractive property to a potential buyer.

The “A” word
What would austerity mean for taxpayers? Under the New York state tax cap law, each school district must use a formula to arrive at a figure representing a “tax levy threshold.” This is currently estimated to represent a 3.4 per cent increase for next year, according to the district’s survey. A tax levy increase above 3.4 per cent would require a 60 per cent super majority voter approval.

If the board votes to override the school district’s levy limit and fails to get the 60 per cent voter approval, the district would be forced to operate on a contingency budget – now defined as the dollar amount of the previous year’s budget, which would no doubt lead to cuts in program.

Next
The next regular board of education meeting is Monday, Feb. 25, 7 p.m., in the high school auditorium.

By Abby Wolf