THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

WPCNR CITY HALL CORRIDORS. February 7, 2003: Colleagues and friends of Eileen Earl, city Budget Director for the last 14 years, will bid her fairwell this afternoon with a small ceremony at 4 PM. Today is Ms. Earl’s final day as financial wizard and guardian of the city exchequer. Long hailed as one of the architects of the city’s financial stability, Ms. Earl is stepping down after 23 years with the city.

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. February 7, 2003: The White Plains City School District, unveiled a “rough cut” of the 2003-2004 School Budget Wednesday night at the second meeting of the city’s Annual Budget Committee.

The “Starting Point Budget” raises district expenditures 9%, to $138.4 Million from the 2002-03 total of $126.9 Million reflecting the new 3% pay raise granted teachers for 03-04, rises in pension benefit contributions required by the state, increased transportation, utility and maintenance costs, and suggested new initiatives to the budget.

WHITE PLAINS ANNUAL BUDGET COMMITTEE WATCHES RICHARD LASSELLE DO THE NUMBERS WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Superintendent of Schools Timothy P. Connors, interviewed by WPCNR after the meeting said the input of the Annual Budget Committee would reveal “the right balance between funding of school programs with the fiscal climate.”
Photo by WPCNR News

The new “Starting Point Budget” is $138,387,074, up from $126.919,919. The largest single line item increase is Salaries, up 7.1% or $5,411,864 to $82,104,175 over the $76,692,311 of 02-03. This reflects, in part the 3% salary increase recently agreed to with the White Plains Teachers Association for 2003-04. The reason the salaries go up in total more than 3% is due to the incremental step raises built into the overall teachers contract based on accumulation of academic credits and longevity. Administration salary costs are included in that $82MM figure.

The second item doing the damage is a 17% increase in Fringe Benefits, totaling $3,533,439 more than this year’s budget of $20,851,944, for a total of $24,385,383. The increases in both wages and benefits are automatic and cannot be limited, according to Richard Lasselle, Assistant Superintendent for Business.

MASTER OF THE BUDGET: Mr. Richard Lasselle reprised his annual role as the interpreter of the school budget to the public.
Photo by WPCNR News

Health Costs and New York State Bungling of Pension Bucks Spike Fringies

The fringe benefits burden is weighted by the 2.4% payment required by the state to repair pension fund losses suffered from poor performing investments made by the State Comptroller’s Office, which handled the pension funds for teachers and New York State Employees the last three years. That payment is estimated at this time, according to Lasselle to be $755,604 of the $3,533,439 Fringe Benefit increase. The payment to the Teachers Retirement fund has not been determined yet, Lasselle told WPCNR.

Lasselle said he did not expect the Fringe Benefits portion of the budget to go higher, because retirement notices (received in January 31), are still being calculated by the School District and figured into the budget at this time. Lasselle expected the Fringe Benefits portion to go down, commensurately lowering the budget from the “Starting Point.” He added that this was a “worse case” scenario on Fringe Benefits.

Health, FICA Eat Money.

Other items that feed into the Fringe Benefit damage are a 15% increase in Health Insurance (up $1,799,680 to $14,051,180), and Social Security going up $795,600(15%).
The amounts scheduled in to the bare bones budget needed to maintain existing programs with no new initiatives, bring the budget to $136,324,542.

Items contributing to the $459,320 that bring the budget up to $136,324.542 are a 12% increase built in for utilities, ($230,654), and a 12% increase ($466,399)in other expenses, made up partly by a 69% jump in Maintenance Costs (contributing $272,651 to the $466,399) due to the older buildings in the district, and a doubling of Staff Development costs (contributing $117,413 to the $466,399 total). An additional$2,000,000 has been requested to bring the budget to the $138.4 MM level to address the following needs:

Pre-Kindergarten Saved.

The district has chosen to keep Pre-Kindergarten programs, and budgeted an $350,000 increase on top of the $150,000 the programs cost this year to assure that Pre-Kindergarten programs will be funded to the tune of the amount Governor Pataki’s educational budget proposes to eliminate ($350,000).

Five New Security Persons for Each Elementary School.

The Budget Committee appeared to agree strongly that the Pre-K reserve should be included, but had a problem with a request for five new security staff at a cost of $225,000. The district wants to add the security staff to supervise school buildings during afterschool hours. Comments asked what they the security would do and what tasks they would perform.

Four New Teachers for the High School.

The District added 4 new certified teachers to the high school staff because of enrollment, at a cost of $290,000. They include 1 Instrumental Music, and three teachers in the Science, Math, and Social Studies areas.

A Full-time Website Specialist.

In an effort to increase effectiveness and timely communicating through the School District website, they budgeted for a full-time webmaster who would maintain the website at a cost of $65,000.

The Budget Committee comments did not go along with this request at all, suggesting it should be outsourced. Mr. Lasselle said that is what is done now, and the feeling is of the administration, that the site could be updated, upgraded more frequently to better effect with a fulltime person, and that such a person would additionally help in training staff to use the website to better advantage.

Staff Development up $100M

The district desires to add $111,500 over the $500,000 that is spent now. Board of Education Member, William Pollak wondered aloud how much was being spent now, and Mr. Lasselle noted the $500,000 figure.

CONNORS MAKES HIS CASE: Tim Connors, Superintendent of Schools, compared Staff Development to the Research & Development that corporations routinely do, that staff training in the district was to give teachers skills they needed to develop.
Photo by WPCNR News

Staff Development Defended as “R & D”

Mr. Connors assured the gathering the staff development did not consist of payment for courses for staff, but instead conducted in-house training at the various schools, preparing teachers as they shifted upwards to new grades, and specialties within the system. Connors said one of the goals this year the Board requested of him was to put in place a cost-effectiveness analysis of the training programs which is being developed.

Enrichment Program Shift for Elementary Students Falling Behind.

An effort to convert After School and Enrichment Programs into Summer School programs was budgeted for $100,000. The objective of this initiative, is an effort to aid elementary school students who are in need of special attention academically, in a different, more effective way in order to meet the No Child Left Behind Federal mandates.

Developing New Policy Towards Placing the Developmentally Disabled.

A total of $793,500 has been requested in an effort to set up a three-part program to bring more special education students back to the district. WPCNR interprets this to be an initiative to cut Special Education costs which have been targeted by the Pataki budget.

NEW DISABLED PROGRAM PROPOSED: Joseph Casbarro, Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Services, outlined a District pilot program to establish four programs: 1.) A Multi-Disabled Class at a cost of $311,000, including 4.5 staff members, and $50,000 for transportation; 2.) Two Passages Classes for emotionally disabled students in the Middle School and High School at a cost of $177,500 each, with 4 personnel and $100,000 in Transportation, and the establishment of a joint program with BOCES at a cost of $127,500.
Photo by WPCNR News

The Bottom Line: 9% Up With Retirements Still Out.

The Special Education Initiative at $793,500, plus the Pre-K “insurance budgeting” of $350,000, the security personnel at $225,000, and the 4 new Certified Teachers at the high school make up half the initiative programs.

Theses new initiatives totaled $2,008,532, added to the $136,324,542 figure combine for a “Starting Point” Total Budget of $138,387,074, a total increase of 9%

Wish List Was $141MM.

The original requests from the schools, staff, and administrators of the district built a budget of $141,418,037, Mr. Lasselle noted at the outset of the evening (when WPCNR was not present, your reporter came in at approximately 9 PM.)

The Administration eliminated 26 new teaching positions at $1,885,000, 20 Classified positions at $897,750, and declined $301,890 in equipment and furniture requests, and $171,175 in additional supplies, postage and travel requests, trimming $3,030,963 from the $141,418037 wish list.

Back Next Week.

Mr. Connors thanked the committee, and looked forward to hearing more of their comments to help the district determine the fate of the initiatives presented. Mr. Lasselle noted the budget most likely would trim some with retirement analysis being conducted over the next few days.

The Annual Budget Committee reconvenes next Wednesday, February 12 at 7:30 PM at Education House. The meeting is open to the public.

White Plains Foresight.

WPCNR talked with a Board of Education member this evening about the budget, informally. “You should have seen my e-mails today,” he remarked, noting the Board of Education was not pleased either.

He said that he had gotten a flock of e-mails Thursday from members of the Budget Committee, and he noted they were more troubled than in previous years. He agreed with WPCNR’s suggestion that the initial 7 to 9% increase in the White Plains District was low compared to other districts in the region because the district had kept pace with needs on a more realistic basis the last four years. Our source agreed that other districts around Westchester County were in huge trouble, noting that the Rye School District was facing a 25% increase, to cite one example.

Assessments Hold Key to School Tax Increase

The last chart of the evening noted that when sales tax revenue begins to come in from the City Center Project and the influx of apartments coming to the city that budget pressures could ease.

Mr. Lasselle said that a 9% budget increase if assessments remained the same, would result in an 11.64% increase in the Tax Rate. If the budget was cut to the 7.1% bare bones budget of $136MM, and assessments remained the same the increase would be 9.17%.

However, if assessments were to go up as much as $3MM, a 9% increase results in a 10.6% tax increase, a 7%, an 8.16% increase.

A source familiar with the White Plains current trend in assessments which will be finalized March 31, told WPCNR Thursday that the assessments right now look “flat,” perhaps slightly down, but they are not up.

What does this mean in terms of a White Plains resident’s school tax? An 11.64% increase in the tax rate on a typical home assessed at $18,500 with a Star Exemption of 4,750 would result in a $521 increase in your School Tax, from $4,481 to $5,002.