Public questions school officials

More than 50 attend budget hearing

By RODNEY MINOR, The Leader-Herald
GLOVERSVILLE — More than 50 Gloversville Enlarged School District taxpayers turned out Tuesday and put school officials on the spot with questions about the proposed budget for the 2008-09 school year.

The Board of Education last month adopted a $50.6 million tentative budget, which includes a 6.9 percent tax-levy increase.

That is a concern for city resident Arthur Simonds, who also is a member of the city Zoning Board of Appeals. Simonds said residents of the district do not have the high-paying jobs necessary to afford the tax-levy increase the school board is proposing. He questioned how much the school district was spending on aides, substitutes and custodial staff, saying those jobs easily cost the school district more than $100,000.

Roger Rooney, the assistant superintendent for curriculum, said in the case of substitutes, 90 percent of the time they are brought in to cover for a sick teacher. The school district does not have the resources allowing someone who is already working to cover for an absent teacher, he said.

Teacher’s aides come in several categories, and a number of them are special education aides, Rooney said. Those aides work one-on-one with students and are mandated by the state, leaving the school with no discretion over their employment, he said.

Carm Serge, who was a special education teacher in the district for 26 years and later became principal at the Mayfield Junior and Senior High School, said he knows from personal experience what type of administration is needed at a school.

Serge said Boulevard Elementary School, with the number of students it has, does not require a principal and an assistant principal.

“Paying an elementary assistant principal between $80,000 and $90,000 a year is insane,” Serge said. “We are paying an assistant more than principals in other school districts make.”

Thomas Komp, the principal at the school, was recently named the School Administrators Association of New York State’s 2008 Elementary Principal of the Year.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Serge pointed to Komp, saying the man knows how to do the job and can handle it by himself.

“I have no malice in this,” he said. “But desperate times call for desperate measures.”

Superintendent Robert DeLilli said the assistant principal, James Crawford, is a trained school psychologist. His presence allows two special education classes to stay at Boulevard, rather than have the students be placed in the Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery Board of Cooperative Educational Services system.

DeLilli said that saves the school district about $450,000. The combined salary for Komp and Crawford in the proposed budget is $206,729.

The proposed budget would cut seventh-grade modified sports, money for clubs and extracurricular activities, money for library books and educational supplies, and summer school programs.

In addition, the proposed budget would cut three librarians from the school district.

Julia Smullen is a teacher’s aide at McNab Elementary School. A city resident, she said it did not make much sense to cut the librarians when the state is mandating certain reading requirements for students.

Business Manager Steve Schloicka said the decision was not final. State Sen. Hugh T. Farley, R-Niskayuna, was able to secure $200,000 in “bullet aid” for the school district, and the board will take another look at the positions.

At at district Board of Education meeting Monday, the majority of the school board was in favor of putting the money toward increasing the fund balance.

Schloicka said Tuesday a decision on any staffing cuts should be made in the next few weeks.

Smullen addressed a rumor that teachers would be cut. DeLilli said school officials would make every effort not to reduce the number of teachers. He said the school board is still going over the budget, however.

Overall, DeLilli said he was pleased with the turnout at the hearing. He said many of the suggestions had already been considered by school officials, so they were not surprised by what they heard.

He said in the future, it would help if more people showed up while the proposed budget is being put together.

“It’s good for people to see that there is no man behind the curtain in Oz creating this [budget],” he said.

The budget vote will take place from noon until 9 p.m. Tuesday.

If voters reject the budget, the district could adopt a lower contingency budget or present another proposal to voters.



Rodney Minor covers Gloversville. He can be reached at gloversville@leaderherald.com'>gloversville@leaderherald.com.