Pearl River Schools 2012-13 Budget Proposal Follows Projections

The Pearl River School District set five primary goals heading into the 2012-13 budget process.

• Keep the tax levy increase in line with state requirements
• Maintain class sizes in the district's three elementary schools
• Maintain core courses in at Pearl River High School and Pearl River Middle School.
• Protect extra-curricular and co-curricular programs.
• Continue to reduce staff only by attrition.

"I'm happy to say we have been able to meet all of those goals, including the most challenging, which was dealing with Albany and the definition of a two percent tax increase," said Pearl River Director of Operations Quinton Van Wynen. "It is not two percent because there are exceptions to everything."

With the exceptions allowed in the state's new tax levy cap, the Pearl River School District's tax levy increase for 2012-13 will be 2.15%. The actual tax increase for individual homeowners is 2.97%. The rate for non-homestead taxpayers is 0.95%.

The $60.3 million budget includes nearly $1 million in fund balance. That includes $200,000 in certiorari reserves, $400,000 in retirement reserves and $343,000 in undesignated fund balance.

Part of the reserves used come from the _$1 million settlement the district received from Olympus Surgical & Industrial America Inc_. Van Wynen estimated that half of the settlement will be used by the end of the 2012-13 school year.

Van Wynen admitted that the district eventually will be unable to stay under the state-mandated tax levy cap without making significant cuts, but was able to avoid doing so this year in part due to the Olympus settlement.

"I want to than Quinton for all of his hard work on the budget," said Superintendent Dr. John Morgano. "It is not an easy job putting together a budget with that much money and complexity. He does a great job every year. I'd like to acknowledge those efforts."

The budget will go to a vote May 15 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Pearl River High School's Pirate Cove.

For more details of the budget proposal, see the PDF file attached to this report.

Other Board Meeting Items

• District Clerk Mary Flanagan announced that petitions to run for seats on the Pearl River Board of Education are available in her office. Petitions must be turned in by April 16. The seats currently held by Bruce Bond and Jackie Curtiss will be up for election this year. Both Bond and Curtiss have said they will seek re-election.
• Appointed Shereen Way as vocal director and Brian Evans as musical director for the high school musical, though Danielle Thomas was unable to take the position of assistant director as initially planned due to a personal matter.
• Freshman baseball coach William Allison resigned because he has accepted a full-time teaching position in another district. Jeff Michael will take his place.
• Pearl River Middle School foreign language teacher Jennifer Ortiz resigned.
• Van Wynen recommended the district grant a contract to CBS Print Management Services, which is a division of Xerox. He projected savings of approximately 17% on the district's annual toner cost.
• Morgano said that the faculty and administration in all of the district's buildings worked on anti-bullying policies during Monday's Superintendent's Conference Day. He said that the district is a year ahead of the rest of the state on new policies designed to combat bullying and that is, "Where we should be. We have always taken leadership in everything."
• The district will be encouraging everyone to wear blue for autism awareness April 2.