The School Budget - First Steps

» Budget Introduction -
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Superintendent will officially introduce the budget to the Board of Education at their next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 8 p.m. at South High School. Following the meeting, the documents presented will be posted to the District website.

» Community Budget Outreach Committee Meeting & Public Input Session #1
The 2011-12 district budget process was initiated by Superintendent Keller-Cogan on Monday, March 14 at the first of two Community Budget Outreach Meetings. A committee comprised of representatives from all stakeholder groups within our district and community joined the Superintendent and her staff for a budget overview and analysis of district spending and revenues.

Dr. Keller-Cogan opened the meeting with positive news on the district's financial outlook for the upcoming school year. She highlighted the key messages she shared in a prior briefing to the committee members:

"As you may already be aware, a school district budget is not only the blueprint for spending and revenues for the coming school year, it is a statement of the values the community has for its students and schools. In recent years, challenging fiscal times have prompted deep reductions within our school system in an effort to provide the community with the leanest operating budget possible while retaining supports for quality educational programs.  

The 2009-2010 BOE approved budget was established at an approximate tax rate of 1.5%. In 2010-2011, the budget was approved at 2%. In order to achieve these targets we eliminated bus purchases, the instructional technology replacement plan, reduced the district office budget by over 17% and schools by approximately 2.8%. We cut central administrative positions, but as we began the 2010-2011 school year, we did not have to excess teachers. We reduced athletic opportunities for our modified through varsity teams. Through a close process of supervision, the overtime budget has been reduced from just under $1 million in 2006-2007 to $186,000 in 2009-2010. Finally, eight of our ten units have completed contract negotiations since June 2010. All eight of these bargaining units accepted a freeze on salary (and step where applicable) for an 18 month time period. To my knowledge, there is no other school district in NYS where its staff so compellingly and collectively demonstrated their sensitivity to the fiscal realities of our times. All of these factors therefore have positioned us more favorably for the 2011-2012 budget.

As we begin the budget process, please be aware of the following proposed areas we hope to maintain or address as we work to complete the 2011-2012 budget that the BOE will vote on April 14, 2011.

Create a 2011-2012 budget that will:

• Maintain instructional supports for students at their current levels

• Maintain staffing levels

• Reinstate some of the athletic cuts made in 2010-2011

• Purchase busses as a part of a bus replacement plan

• Begin to purchase instructional technology to update and enhance our supports for students

• Address safety and security needs of each of our schools as reflected in the five-year building analysis commissioned by our BOE

• Discuss the potential for a modest amount of capital work

Even with the above, we remain committed to providing a budget that is not only fiscally responsible; it will reflect the realties of our economic times."

Following Dr. Keller-Cogan's overview, Director of Fiscal Management John LaNave gave details on the budget financials. Please review the attached presentation.
2011-12 CCSD School Budget Financial Overview

The document below details the proposed expenditures to address safety and security needs in each of our facilities.
2011-12 CCSD Health and Safety Capital Project Needs

Director of Instructional Technology John Krouskoff gave an overview of the proposed multi-year plan to fund classroom technologies.
2011-12 - CCSD Instructional Technology Budget Proposal

Below is the Clarkstown Central School District 2011-12 Draft Rollover Budget By Object Code.
2011-12 Draft Rollover Budget by Line 

NYCOSS Analysis of Legislative Spending Proposals
Please see attached from the New York State Council of School Superintendents which analyzes the current budget proposals for education by the NYS Senate and Assembly.
  Comparison of New York State Assembly and Senate Budget Proposals for Education

District's Fiscal Practices Subject of National Magazine Profile
Dr. Keller-Cogan's work in managing the District's finances was featured in the March/April issue of the national publication "Education Executive." The feature piece, entitled, "Strategic Spending," outlines the Superintendent's success in reducing operating costs while maintaining the district's standards of academic excellence.

Dr. Keller-Cogan began a focused initiative to reduce expenses in 2007, and components of that initiative are highlighted. These include a overtime management plan resulting in a reduction in overtime spending from nearly
$1 million in 2006-2007 to $186,000 in 2009-2010 for a cost avoidance of $800,000 per year; engagement of an energy management company guaranteeing $6.2 million in reduced spending within ten years and a 17% reduction in district office expenditures in 2009 through a net reduction of six administrative positions. In addition, the article discusses the impact of her recent successful negotiations of eight union contracts which include an 18 month salary and step freeze in each. The article notes Clarkstown's per pupil spending is approximately $4000 less per student than the Rockland County average with consistently outstanding academic performance.

Clarkstown's strategic spending came to the attention of the Education Executive staff via media reports and information found on the district's website and other internet sites. The magazine is published by Redcoat Publishing, Boston, MA.

Local Vendors Wild About Chili - Come Taste For Yourself!
Thanks to the following vendors who will be donating food and other goods to Saturday's Clarkstown Education Foundation Annual Chili Festival. In addition to great food, there will be carnival games (with thanks to Elaine Apfelbaum) and raffles for prizes including an IPAD2. The event will take place from 6-9 pm at Felix Festa Middle School.

ABC Party Rentals · Answer Vending · At Your Service Catering CB Kitchen & Bar · Chefs2Be Culinary Learning Center Consolidated Dairies · Cookies and More · Hostess Jay Bee · New City Fire House · Primo Provisions Reality Bites Café · Rockland BOCES Culinary Arts Club Sysco · True Food · Union Restaurant

• Individual Exhibits
  1st Place: Schecter v. U.S. (Caroline Poleway)
  2nd Place: The Six-Day War (Kobi Axelrod)
  3rd Place: The Berlin Wall (Rachel Josef) 

• Group Exhibits
  3rd Place: Prohibition (Richard & Jason Adamovich-Zeitlin) 

• Individual Documentary
  1st Place: Medicare (Peter O'Neill)
  2nd Place: Gandhi (Nithya Kasi)
  3rd Place: Child Labor (Sophia Giglio) 

• Group Documentary
  2nd Place: NEA (Kristen Cordara, Riya Shah)
  3rd Place: The Death Penalty (Kush Patel, Ethan Jaynes, Matt Marchese,
  Josh Maurer) 

• Individual Website
  1st Place: PATCO (William Atzl)
  2nd Place: Harvey Milk (Jason Levy) 

• Group Website
  1st Place: Cuban Missile Crisis (Justin Kim, Ethan Yablonko) 

• Individual Performance
  2nd Place: Native American Boarding Schools (Shauna Bahssin) 

• Group Performance
  1st Place: Stonewall Riots (Mackenzie Badick, Meaghan McGovern)
  2nd Place: Election of 1800 (Erica Bosso, Sophie Greenberg)
  3rd Place: Falkland Islands (Alec Baron, Josh Drapkin, Ryan Grogan) 

• Research Paper
  2nd Place: Yom Kippur War (Jonathan Schatz-Mizrahi)
  3rd Place: Good Friday Peace Accord (Tara Garvey)

North High School:

Here are North High School winners from the National History Day regional competition. It was held at STAC on Saturday with about 10 school districts participating. 1st and 2nd place winners will advance to the State competition in Cooperstown on April 29th.

• Senior Group Presentation
  2nd Place: Gay Rights (Madison Deming, Irina Huang, Shivkrish Lingala, Jake Gogats, Elizabeth Cantor-SHS)

• Senior Group Website
  1st Place: Liberia (Greg Briker, Robert Duggan, Josh Berg-SHS)

• Senior Group Documentary
  1st Place: Reagan/Gorbachev (Shelby Hougui, Miskat Rahman, Saarthak Sarup)
  2nd Place: Rekyjavik Summit (Joan Lee) (Zachary Ringer SHS, Abbey Murphy SHS, Sneha Mehta SHS, Lauren Goldman SHS)

• Senior Group Documentary
  3rd Place: Creation of Israel (Hannah Levin, Jacob Kuhn)

South High School Winners:

• Group Performance
  1st place - Olga Zubashko and Daniel Weiner 2nd place - Elizabeth Kantor

• Group Exhibit
  2nd place - Danielle Clynes and Lillian Lu 3rd place - Roopali Shreedhar, Navjot Batra, Alina Sardana, Julia Hoch

• Group Website
  1st place - Dhruv Ragunathan, Yeon Gyeong Lee, Alvin Matthew, Dhruv Ragunathon, and Rohan Patel
  2nd place - Joshua Berg
  3rd place - Ariela Nazar-Rosen, Shadrach Hepner, George Lopez, and Laksh Agrawal 

• Senior Group Presentation
  2nd Place: Gay Rights (Madison Deming, Irina Huang, Shivkrish Lingala, Jake Gogats, Elizabeth Cantor-SHS) 

• Senior Group Website
  1st Place: Liberia (Greg Briker, Robert Duggan, Josh Berg-SHS)

• Senior Group Documentary
  1st Place: Reagan/Gorbachev (Shelby Hougui, Miskat Rahman, Saarthak Sarup)
  2nd Place: Rekyjavik Summit (Joan Lee) (Zachary Ringer SHS, Abbey Murphy SHS, Sneha Mehta SHS, Lauren Goldman SHS) 

• Senior Group Documentary
  3rd Place: Creation of Israel (Hannah Levin, Jacob Kuhn)

South High School Winners:

• Group Performance
  1st place - Olga Zubashko and Daniel Weiner 2nd place - Elizabeth Kantor

• Group Exhibit
  2nd place - Danielle Clynes and Lillian Lu 3rd place - Roopali Shreedhar, Navjot Batra, Alina Sardana, Julia Hoch

• Group Website
  1st place - Dhruv Ragunathan, Yeon Gyeong Lee, Alvin Matthew, Dhruv Ragunathon, and Rohan Patel 2nd place - Joshua Berg* 3rd place - Ariela Nazar-Rosen, Shadrach Hepner, George Lopez, and Laksh Agrawal

South Artists' Design to Be Featured in United Way Campaign
Attendees at Rockland County's largest volunteer event, the United Way Spring Day of Caring, will be sporting t-shirts with a winning design by South High School artists Erica Tenteromano & Paige DeMaio. Their "Live United" artwork was selected from among the many entries in the Rockland Spring Day of Caring Design Contest. The two were encouraged to participate in the competition by South art teacher Ms. Colleen Harrigan. The event is Saturday, April 9th.
  See the brochure for more information.

South Achieves at Junior State of America Convention
Members of South's chapter of the Junior State of America (JSA) attended the annual Winter Congress in Washington, D.C., over the February 11 weekend with their teacher/advisor Ms. Abigail Gordon. The chapter was one of the largest delegations at the convention, attended by schools from all over the Northeast. Three South students won Best Speaker awards, Sophomore Alex Sadler and seniors Harry Adler and Olga Zubashko. These honors were earned by debating whether or not their proposed legislation should be passed into law. In addition, freshmen Shawn McKirvegan and Alexis Ramirez wrote legislation that was eventually passed into law at the Convention.