The Rye Superindendent's recommended school budget for 2013-2014 was presented at a recent Board of Education meeting. Here are the notes and the budget.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
Superintendent Dr. Frank Alvarez; Interim Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Dr. Mary Anne Evangelist; and Assistant Superintendent for Business Mrs. Kathleen Ryan presented the Superintendent's Recommended 2013-2014 School District Budget. The presentation outlined elements impacting the budget, including enrollment and program changes as well as challenges posed by the tax levy cap and rising costs of unfunded State and Federal mandates.
Also discussed were revenue sources and efforts to contain and manage costs. Budget conversations will continue at the February 26 and March 5 Board of Education Meetings; and at the March 19 meeting, an Open Topics Forum will be held during which the Board will meet with groups in the audience.
It’s a very interesting first pass budget proposal. Worth noting (digging into) are:
> Exact sources of the $2.154million in cuts to Salaries & Benefits
> Sources of the to-be-defined cuts of $110k
> Necesssity for spending $1.1million on faciities in parallel to the planned expenditures on the HS lab center
> Proposed use of $2.1million of reserves of which $1.4million is for operational costs. [unsustainable].
Not presented, but something that should be required by the Board and the public before voting on any proposed budget is a detailed update to spending, tax rate growth, and fund balance reserves as an extension to the material produced before the HS bond votes last year.