Scarsdale 10583

Those who decry high Scarsdale school taxes may be appeased by the latest news from the Scarsdale Board of Education now indicating that the proposed school budget for 2012-13 will comply with the 2% New York State tax cap. However, the irony is that the 2% cap has now been adjusted to 2.99%.

According to the law, the 2% cap can be adjusted for the growth rate, increases in pension and retire payment above 2%, capital improvements and equipment purchases. Due to this change in the formula for the cap and the Board’s decision to utilize surplus funds and decrease reserves, the proposed budget now falls within the allowable increase.

The total proposed school budget for 2012-13 is now $141,634,884, representing a 2.30% increase over the 2011-12 budget. This will translate to a 2.89% increase in the tax levy and tax increases of 3.81% for Scarsdale residents and 2.64% for those in the Mamaroneck strip.

The first proposed budget was $1.2 million above the cap but this gap was eliminated when a change in the rules for the school’s tax cap calculation permitted Scarsdale to exempt $300,000 for the purchase of new school buses from the cap. In addition, the Board opted to add $500,000 in surplus funds to the 2012-13 budget,decrease the health insurance reserve by $300,000 and to reduce the reserve for electricity by $250,000.

For the past several years, the budget surplus has been growing, and the Board felt comfortable to begin spending it down.  After lengthy discussions the Board decided that a portion of the large surplus should be spent to fund next year’s budget and that the reserves for the health plan and electricity could be reduced. Discussing the surplus, Board President Jill Spieler said, “After careful review the Board decided that it would be in the District’s best interest to cut back on our planned year over year fund balance by $500,000 for 2012-13. The Board feels confident that we are still leaving ourselves with a responsible level of reserves in both designated and undesignated categories.” Board member Jonathan Lewis said we are “adequately reserved,” and Lew Leone said it was “time to be less conservative with our rainy day funds.” He cited decreasing enrollment and a flattening out of future expenses as reasons to reduce the amount held in surplus and reserve funds.

Since funding for capital improvement projects are not included in the cap, the Board discussed including funds for some needed improvements to the schools and decided to add $350,000 to the budget for these projects. Though they have not yet decided what will be done, here are some projects under consideration:

• Renovations of the high school auto shop to create a satellite cafeteria and work area for students to alleviate crowding in the cafeteria and provide space for group activities and learning.
• A new fitness center at the high school, which had been approved in 2008, but put off due to budget constraints
• Renovations of the serving area of the high school kitchen
• Bathroom renovations at the middle school
• Replacement of the seating in the high school auditorium
• Construction of a bathroom in Choice at the middle school
• Replacement of the kindergarten playground at Fox Meadow
• Replacement of the flywheel or curtain rigging on the middle school stage
• Regrading of Dean Field at SHS where the northwest corner of the field is often under water.

The Board will need to finalize their thinking on capitol projects by early March and submit proposed projects to the state for approval.

In addition, to the $350,000 for capitol improvements, the Board also designated $100,000 for a new Center for Innovation for the district. The center will develop models of instruction and explore how technology can transform learning. The funding will be used for speakers, site visits, and research to investigate how the schools can integrate new technologies into the educational system. As part of the process, the district will look into partnering with universities and corporations and will work with community members who are knowledgeable in the field. Findings will be published in an e-journal and shared both inside and outside the district.

In discussing the school budget, Superintendent Mike McGill restated his belief that Scarsdale taxpayers want a quality education and are willing to pay a reasonable amount to fund it. He feels that the proposed budget is the right budget for Scarsdale and he added, “My sense is that the large majority of people believe that is what we should be doing.”

Now that the budget no longer exceeds the cap, the community will not need to pass it by a 60% super majority vote in May. Budgets that comply with the state cap need only pass by a simple majority vote.

Comments (6)

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written by Jeff B, March 13, 2012

Bravo, Dan Wilcox. Well said.

Jeff Blatt

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written by Dan Wilcox, March 06, 2012

Two boos for those who seem to have completely forgotten what makes Scarsdale the exceptional community it is - it's the schools, stupid! My guess is that most of those who bemoan our "gold-plated" schools have kids who are in private school or who have already benefited from a "gold-plated" education and have moved on, most likely to "gold-plated" colleges. But let's not fool ourselves into believing that there is no connection between what we spend on our schools, the quality of the education our children receive (compared with other school districts in Westchester), and the desireability of Scarsdale as a place to live. If you need to be reminded about this, just compare the fair market value of a home in Scarsdale to a similarly sized home in New Rochelle, White Plains, Eastchester, Yonkers, or Hartsdale. This is not a coincidence! We get a lot of value for our tax dollar. Let's not mortgage our future to save a few bucks today.

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written by William Hyman, February 26, 2012

I would ask all those on the Board of Education or Village board when was the last time taxes did not go up or even went DOWN? These past few years we have all had to tighten our belts but when you hear your representatives say that taxes JUST went up by the rate of inflation one wonders why they went up at all?? Isn't there anything in the budget that could be CUT to offset the things on auto-pilot that always go up??Not to undermine our kids or deny them anything but there have to be some areas we could cut....? More should be done to make sure that every dollar spent is a dollar that MUST be spent. The people of Scarsdale deserve that much consideration!

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written by Mike Weinstein, February 26, 2012

It is fully time that the school boards stop destroying value in our community and learn to live within its means. This simply means that the budget grow no more than general inflation. Why should our schools continue their inexorable increase in costs at twice the rate of inflation? Has the level of services and quality of education increased in real terms? I doubt it.

Instead, the school board should learn to reflect the will of the voters who sent people to Albany to enact a tax cap and end the insanity in this state.

Lets be honest about it. The schools in Scarsdale start with good raw material and parents who are comfortable expending extra money to advance their children's educations (e.g., SAT and AP prep classes). At some point we need to stop gold plating our schools. Given where we start if we can't live within our means then it is time to put people in charge who can.

It sounds to me like the school board has finally gotten the message. Let's hope they follow through in coming years.

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written by Board meeting observer, February 26, 2012

I disagree with the previous writer's facts and interpretation. If one followed the recent school board discussions carefully, board members did not specifically aim to "comply" with the tax levy limit. The artificial tax levy limit is determined by a convoluted formula that barely factors in state mandated costs, with only a slight allowance for pension growth over 2%. Hopefully, as they did this year, Scarsdale school board members will continue to decide budgets that are right for Scarsdale, regardless of the artificial tax levy amount the strange new state formula churns out. The main reason the school budget now happens to meet the tax levy limit for Scarsdale is that the state just re-calculated the district's tax levy limit and the state's own re-calculation brought the proposed budget under the cap. In a few weeks, for all we know the state could re-calculate again and we'll be over the tax levy "cap." (Thus, a perfect example of the Kafkaesque absurdity of this whole Albany-imposed bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.) Hopefully, we also won't be hyper-focused on CPI as a basis for our decisions on the school budget, as the writer below suggests, since many education costs exist outside of this particular measure. The previous writer also gives the impression that the so-called "tax cap" caps the tax rate, which it does not, since such also depends on state equalization rate adjustments as well as STAR.

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written by Bob Selvaggio, February 26, 2012

Two cheers for the School Board for setting this precedent of a budget that complies with the New York State 2% cap.

A tax increase of 3.81% however, is 47% higher that the year-over-year inflation rate (month end Jan 2012 NY/NY CPI-U ex food and energy) -- and these increases in real terms of Scarsdale taxes are forcing many long-time residents out of our community. The simple fact is that the economic environment of the past three years has put great strain on the most vulnerable among us.

Let's temper our enthusiasm for the conspicuous consumption of gold-plated "everything" for concern about the well-being of those among us whose incomes are not increasing at a rate 50% above the rate of inflation.

Next year both the Village Board and the School Board must return tax increases that are within both the 2% cap AND within the general rate of inflation. I will vote only for candidates that express their commitment to doing so.

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