Bloomingdale School Board Approves $248K in Budget Reductions

The voted to approve a $16.8 million amended 2011-2012 school district budget as reduced by the Tuesday. The amended budget comes with a $14,142,093 tax levy.

The council recommended $248,622 worth of reductions over the district's originally adopted $17.3 million 2011-2012 budget.

The council was forced to make recommendations for reductions to the district's adopted budget after it was in April. After official results came in on May 5, the school district had 48 hours to deliver a of each item in the failed budget to the borough council so that they could make recommendations for reductions.

The recommended reductions the council made in the school district budget include $98,822 in teachers' salaries due to replacements of retiring teachers with entry level teachers, $44,000 in unallocated health benefits, $25,000 in unallocated unemployment benefits (the district requested the line item be reduced to its current appropriation level of $75,000, which they believe would be sufficient), $5,800 by eliminating new library catalog software systems at the and schools and a $75,000 increase for projected tuition revenues and unexpected budget appropriations.

Bloomingdale resident Meredith Mascitello asked the school district's Business Administrator George Hagl why the retiring teachers were factored in after the voters voted on the budget.

"As a voter, I feel like it's awfully convenient that we voted it down, and you would assume we're demanding cuts and conveniently here are two teacher retirements," Mascitello said. "I just feel a little bit, kind of, used." 

Hagl said that teachers are able to retire at any time and that the district learned of the retirements after the budget had already been submitted to the county.

"These teachers only submitted their papers after the budget was submitted to the county superintendent for approval and the process was well underway already," he said.

Teacher contracts were also discussed at the meeting, with residents questioning whether the district and council attempted to negotiate forgoing salary increases with the teachers' union. Board of Education President Lauren Grecco said the board did speak with the union and that they were not interested at this time. Grecco said that the district is finishing the final year of a three-year contract with the union and that the district is in the beginning stages of negotiation for the next contract. 

"The reality of our situation has to be brought into negotiations," Mayor Jon Dunleavy said during the meeting. 

The mayor said that "items concerning 2 percent raises are really not acceptable in today's marketplace" and that the school board and municipality will have to work together to come up with ways to gain revenue to offset costs "in these tough times." The mayor also said voter turnout was a real issue this year, as only 732 voters turned up, a significant drop from 1,007 last year. This year was the third year the budget failed.

Councilman Bernie Vroom said he felt the school district should look into state grants, such as an energy grant the borough received, for ways to complete improvements on district buildings without having to exhaust funds. One such grant he mentioned was for a loan for a solar panel project, but Hagl responded that the district is currently seeking bids for its own that would not require the district to borough any money.

Hagl also said that the board did have a plan in place for capital improvements to the boiler at the Martha B. Day School which is nearly 50 years old and the roof on the Walter T. Bergen School, which Hagl said is leaking, but that the money that would have been set aside for these projects was recommended by the council to be reallocated toward tax offsets.

"Unfortunately, we're sitting in a position this evening where we're giving some of those monies back instead of depositing it toward a quote-on-quote savings account, being our capital savings account, for tax offsets," he said. "So we have to weigh our priorities here, folks, because there are some desperate needs that the school has."