BOCES asks for $18 million for capital repairs; CCSD’s share is $1.5 million
December 9, 2011
by Christine Yeres
Last on Tuesday November 29, Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES (“Board of Cooperative Educational Services”) Assistant Superintendent Tom Higgins informed Chappaqua Board of Education members that BOCES must make capital repairs to its 40-year-old buildings and that all 18 school district members of Northern Westchester/Putnam BOCES will have to chip in. CCSD’s portion of the $18 million BOCES needs is $1.57 million. The cost will not be felt in the district’s budget until 2014-2015, in that year around $47,000.
Repairs are needed for five buildings on BOCES main campus a smaller facility at Fox Meadow, all in Yorktown Heights. Roof repair will cost $5.2 million; heat and air-conditioning system repairs, 8.7 million; and repairs for a therapy pool, $3 million. The smallest-ticket item is $150,000 for a fire alarm and PA system. Another $2,060,000 will go toward architect and contingency fees.
BOCES itself will contribute $900,000 toward the $18 million from a capital fund, but depends on the 18 school districts who make use of BOCES’ system of shared services to pick up the remainder of the tab.
How CCSD uses BOCES
Superintendent Lyn McKay explained the type of use the school district makes of P/NW BOCES. Recently, for example, BOCES was instrumental in putting teachers from different districts together with consultants to collaborate in building an blended online/in-class course, “Problems of the 21st Century,” due to roll out as an elective in the spring at Greeley. The district uses BOCES more heavily for teacher training, curriculum development, education for sustainability, and social studies and English Language Arts elementary curriculum development. However, some Greeley students are enrolled in the P/NW BOCES “Walkabout” program. The school district also makes use of Southern Westchester’s BOCES.
How are expenses apportioned among member-districts?
To allocate costs to the 18 school districts who partake of BOCES services, Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES uses 50% of each of two measures:
1. true value (the measure of property wealth)
2. resident-weighted average daily attendance (similar to district enrollment)
Of the 18 districts that belong to BOCES, CCSD ranks third in property wealth, sixth in population.
A three-year timeline for capital projects and borrowing
Higgins told board members that BOCES had spread the capital improvement projects across three years, and recommends three tiers of borrowing, to start by the end of January 2012. All 18 school district boards must vote on the capital project. All must agree. If one or two vote No, BOCES “would try to talk to them again, plead, whatever,” said Higgins, “but just as is the case with your individual school boards, if we have real concern about the condition of a building we can declare an emergency and fix, for example, the roof even without your approval by vote.”
BOCES suggests borrowing the money in three installments, said Higgins:
1. July 2, 2012—$580,000
2. July 1, 2013—$565,000
3. July 1. 2014—$463,000
As Higgins described it, the district would borrow the $1.5 million at a 4.5% interest rate for 18 years [or for 30, if CCSD prefers], but only in school year 2014-15 would CCSD see a budget-to-budget increase of $47,000. The following year the increase would be $38,000, then remain constant over the next 15 years.
The 2% Cap…
“How does this affect our cap?” asked board member Karen Visser. Higgins explained that although under the new tax cap CCSD’s debt service on its own buildings is excluded, CCSD’s debt service on the $1.5 million borrowed for BOCES is not. It must fit within the 2% cap.
Assistant Superintendent for Business John Chow noted that, based on the BOCES proposal, there is no significant impact on CCSD’s budget until 2014-2015.
Board member Jeffrey Mester: What if we resign from BOCES?
Higgins: You can’t—it’s state law.
Board member Randy Katchis: So we’re mandated by state law to support BOCES. We have a participatory rate on an annual basis and a capital basis over time. We have an option to vote [on the capital project budget] but if the repairs are critical, we just get a bill—like the retirement system or anything else?
Higgins: That’s a good capsule.
Visser: Asking at this time puts us in a really big bind.
Mester: $1.5 million is what? Twelve, thirteen teachers [salaries]?
Board member Vicky Tipp: And the fact that we have one of the highest shares and lowest usages [for BOCES services]—I do appreciate the shared educational services, but in terms of usage of the buildings we have one of the very lowest.
Higgins: On the student side, that is correct
Katchis: We’re going over our budget, looking to see what we can do to trim. Have you looked and seen whether— ‘Hey! Can we reduce that by four or five percent?’—Has that exercise been done?
Higgins: There’s a limit to what we can do out of our operating budget…. It sounds logical [that we could reduce our operating expenses], but it’s not do-able. We can’t take dollars out of the program budget and put it into the capital projects budget.
Mester: Reduce programs!
Board President Alyson Kiesel: That’s what we have to do.
Higgins: Unless we can predict a year in advance what services you’re going to buy, we can’t come up with a budget the way you do. We start with a base budget and it grows in the course of the year.
Katchis: So you’re not completely fee-for-service. You have a base budget. We contribute a certain amount of money, whereas our BOCES contribution is our accumulation of services, like a base-plus-commission?
Higgins: The base you pay is the administration budget which is allocated to you, and the capital budget. Other than that, yes, is fee-for-service, what you determine you’re going to use.
Mester: How many administrators does BOCES have?
Katchis: If you take that administrative budget and the capital budget and—like we do here—if you want to allocate more to critical capital expenditures, can you do that?
Higgins explained that of the $8.5 million administrative budget, health insurance for retirees is about $4.5 million. In fact, he said, if that figure could be separated from the administration budget, it would show that BOCES’ administration budget is going down from year to year. “We know what you’re facing,” he added, “we’ve eliminated a variety of positions in the business office, and when retirements take place we reorganize and cut positions.”
Tipp: What is your employee contribution to health care?
Higgins: This year, 15% for administrators, 11% for teachers. Contracts are up this year and we don’t know what next year’s will be. Office and custodial next year will be paying 10%.
Kiesel: Do outside districts pay [other than the 18 members] pay a different price for services?
Higgins explained that BOCES picks up around $200,000 in fees from districts outside the 18-member consortium. Such districts would pay the rate plus an administrative fee, in the case of Yonkers [which uses Southern Westchester BOCES far more], for example, a 14 or 15% fee.
Visser: How much higher is that than what we pay?
Mester: We would pay a lot less if we went a la carte.
Chow: The state says we cannot resign from BOCES.
Kiesel: To what degree do you make sure that everyone who uses the facilities shares in the capital expenditures?
Higgins: The fees on non-member districts brings in around $200,000 as miscellaneous revenue to the administrative budget. That decreases your share of the administrative budget.
The discussion ended with Superintendent Lyn McKay adding, “We really do use BOCES quite a bit, for teaching us about scoring assessments, scroing leaders for all of the assessments, research if we’re looking up something quickly, giving us all the State Education Department updates, the courses for our Science 21 in the elementaries. We use them quite a bit in terms of professional development.”
Perhaps I am not as informed as our current Board, my understanding of the BOCES programs is to provides students the right to a free appropriate public education. It is a mandated part of a students right to transitional services. This is a coordinated program to enable a student to move from school to post secondary education ,vocational training,employment or additional services. These programs prepare students for real world careers and options to further their education in chosen fields.
It is surprising to me that our Board members would even consider opting out of a program so vital to many students in order to save tax payer dollars.. Perhaps the Board should take some time to better explore the value that success in these programs brings to the lives of Greeley students who participate in those programs Boces. The Board should realize that not all students find personnel success in AP classes or the narrow choices offered at Greeley.
If the Board truly wishes to save some funds, it should reconsider offering AP classes altogether. Why shouldn’t students wait until they are in college to sit in college level classes. They could do this at their own expense and not burden the taxpayers. If students are academically advanced enough to sit for college level classes, why not let those students test out of High School, graduate early and moving on to college? This may be a more cost effective way to save some funds for our District? What is the reason for paying for students to stay at a High School level if they have already demonstrated advanced academic proficency?
To the editor or any board member that would like to respond….there are 18 districts participating in BOCES. Is it correct to assume every school district in Westchester is mandated by the state to particpate? Or are there school districts not included in the 18? And if so - why?
Editor’s Note: Higgins mentioned that only Mamaroneck is not a member—from very early (1948), due to some early exception allowed. But no exceptions since.
AP-concerned person,
AP classes are a great deal for kids (and their bill-paying parents) who get college credit stored up. They can graduate from college a semester or even a year early because of it. You might say that those students get $$ value - depending on his/her college tuition, big bucks even—from having taken AP courses.
So maybe the day will come when we send students who ARE ready for college classes either 1. to college early or 2. to college courses online, while remaining physically in h.s. That way AP classes that are not filled (or ones that don’t produce good end results) can be eliminated and teacher energy can go to improve the education of students who are not such high performers - the majority of students, by the way.
To Online AP instead. I have 2 children currently in college. Both had taken 3 or 4 AP classes at Greeley and scored high enough to get “college credit”. In both cases and with both colleges they attend the AP high school credits did not replace college credits. It allows students to enter certain college courses above entry level. It may also allow these AP credits to fill basic university requirements so that my children need not take them. They have the flexibility to take other classes and that is what they must do to graduate. BUT in neither case do the actual credits count towards college graduation and college minimum credit requirements. Your comment about them graduating early and getting $$Value is incorrect. I still had to pay full tuition and they were not credited for high school AP classes.
To ONLINE AP’s Instead,
I am directly aware of what a great deal AP classes are for many students. One of my children benefitted from AP classes and was lucky to have had this great deal provided at taxpayer expense. The question is should tax payers be required to provided this deal, is it a mandatory part of public education? My concern is for the school board’s focused questions on mandatory participation in the Boces program and their apparent search for cost cutting measures.
For many students who attend a technical program, this is the only avenue for success at a high school level. College may not be in their future. Is it justified to place the cost on taxpayer’s to providing college level classes for students, who clearly do not need more provided for them at a high school level(my child included), even if it is a great deal!
Perhaps if the AP classes were provided through the Boces forum, the Board would be less inclined to ask if they were required to participate!
In my opinion, we NEED technical programs for many of our students -
we do not NEED college classes in high school. It would be a shame to lose either great opportunities for our children.
The Board should ask itself if ” mandatory participation “is the criteria by which the decision making process is based to keep good programs!
It is time that parents of special needs students pay their way. I am tired of them leechiing off the system and asking everyone else to pick up the tab.
If your child had medical problems, you would pay for it. If they have psychiatric problems, you would pay for it.
I am tired of the envy and ill will they bear to those families and students who are more talented and smarter. Since when have we penalized students by denying them opportunity to develop their gifts. I am tired of the resentment against AP courses. There should be more of them. It is not simply that they offer college advancement, those students need those courses to feed and foster their intellectual needs and they have a right to that according to the founding principles of this nation.
What happened to Jefferson’s founding principle of “the pursuit of happiness”? What do you think that means? The opportunity to
develop our individual gifts to their fullest capacity—opportunity.
What right do you have to deny equal opportunity to the gifted?
What affect will such policies have upon our national culture as a whole if we deny the gifted the necessary resources?
Because of this unfortunate trend to penalize the gifted, our educational system is rated as one of the lowest in the world.
Since we are having to find revenue for the CCSD budget, let’s start charging for some special needs services, such as the large number of psychologists and social workers and their support staff for special needs students in Horace Greeley.
Glad that parent of successful/Boces brought it to our attention. We want an accounting of the exact amount that all special needs students, including Boces, costs the district. Then perhaps we can make the decision of what services those parents should be paying for.
Expand the AP classes.
This is an interesting and informative article on many levels. I feel we are lucky to have such comprehensive services through Boces which enhances the off-site portion of our public school sector. We are all responsible through our community to education and development our children with rich and diverse opportunities. One can not just qualify success through academic programs and leave out the hands-on and technical training, that would prove too expensive for individual districts in reconciling it’s usage on a year to year basis. The wealth of our education is the vision to provide a well rounded and balances approach that supports the success off all children in the community. This would include the continual development and support of the educational staff as well.
Without such programs, students are at risk for developing self esteem issues, lack of personnel success and a burden to society in ways that can not be identified in a school budget.
I am a bit surprised to read where members of our school board would even ask, in several instances, if participation is mandatory.
It may be too often assumed by parents that our children are born to become high level achievers and are destine to attend a University. Parents often find out that the best programs for their children are ones that inspire a genuine interest in a field and offer real world experience. These programs are often the best place for students to become self motivated, engaged in their development and expand their growth. A place to find themselves! Students often go on to college programs combining the technical with the academics.
In response to advanced level or AP classes which are a wonderful opportunity for the higher academic student, regardless of the realiziation of the benefits utilized at the University level, they are in fairness a direct cost to the taxpayer.
How about online special needs courses instead of Boces?
It was fitting that our board questioned BOCES costs just as we question the costs OUR board of ed has say over. I think board members were right to ask whether BOCES has looked hard at its budget. However, BOCES answers to our board members are pretty much the same as our board members’ answers to us: Our costs are our costs. It’s expensive to operate a staff-intensive business.
Hey, to “charge for special needs” - you sound impatient and stressed like a lot of taxpayers across the country. But let’s not start scrapping with one another. Ask that our board look for efficiencies everywhere. Special ed should take the same hit proportionately that the general student population does, but, frankly, there are mandates from the State to adhere to. That makes it an Albany mandates problem, like a lot of our problems. There is no way it’s fair to ask people whose children have developmental issues to bear the cost of educating them. These are accidents of fate. You would feel very, very differently if your child were in need of special services. Thank God many people ARE able to feel as though all kids belong to all of us, including special needs kids
If its mandatory and we must partiicipate and pay BOCES then move the Life School to BOCES!
L:ife School is an expensive drain of taxpayer resources. I understand it is vital and important to many students with certain “issues” but the way Life School is run and the way in which students get chosen has shown all of us that many in Life School are gaming the system. The reason it is so popular is because course work, homework, and testing is less demanding. Everyone gets good grades. Just ask any kid at Greely and they know someone in Life School that is perfectly fine and wrangled their way in.
Move Life School to BOCES.
It appears from what Board member Tipp points out- Chapp is contributing a portion of the percentage based on the true value( real wealth) assigned to our district. This would be a distribution of district funds that do not correlate to the districts usage, number of students attending programs. Although it may seem that other districts contributing have an unfair advantage in paying less and gaining more with higher students enrollment, I feel it is important to remember that as a caring community we should be willing to do what we can to make programs available for all students. This has apparently been the measure for some time now and it is a responsible position to be willing to share in our assigned portion as a wealthy community
To Charge for special needs Paarent-
It is your right to pursue your happiness and that of your child’s, but at your own personnel expense if it falls outside of what a public school is designated to provide at taxpayer expense. Feel free to pay for additional programs,private lessons, more tutors and all the extra you wish to enjoy! Many private schools provide a wealth of extra’s! No one is stopping you. The idea that all the extra’s you wish to enjoy in life is on the taxpayers dime is not your right.The issue is providing for the basics needs of children before others get more! more! more!
We could also have a surcharge for each child that attends school so that families that send four children through the system don’t pay the same as one, or none.
We could have a special assessment for condo owners who completely game the system with lower taxes for reasons that are completely unrelated to the fair market value of their homes,
We could have all parents drive their kids to school like Pleasantville and get rid of the busing expense,
We could make all extracurricular activities come with a fee to cover the cost,
We could make all kids brown bag it and get rid of the cafeterias and the related expense,
We could have one principal for high school, one for middle school and one for grammar school and delegate more responsibilities to the assistant principals,
We could change the way children of teachers in the district are allowed to bring their kids to school for free,
We could close an elementary school or one of the middle schools and open up a charter school in its place to cut costs.
Some of these are serious, some are not, none are targeted at the special needs children of our community who are the most vulnerable. And don’t label our obligation to them as a mandate like pensions. One of the saddest posts I have ever seen on any board.
To They’re all our children,
If that is the case, then why don’t we give equal treatment to the best and brightest and “bear the cost” of meeting their “special needs” and fund the AP courses?
Do they not have the same right to their developmental needs?
A public school is obligated under the law to provide certain basic educational opportunities at the taxpayers expense. You should feel blessed that your child has the oppty to be in a position to take AP classes. The concept that the community at large should pay for those could be viewed by many as elitist. Some services rank schools by the number of students taking AP classes or reaching a certain grade level in AP classes. Pretty much a lazy way of ranking the schools that can be gamed. You should be careful, because you may have the opposite effect of what you are intended and start to put a bullseye on the cost of our AP program.
Since CCSD pays a very large portion of the Boces expense,we should ask our Supnt and the Board why we are not utilizing this program more. Some of the brightest students from other districts are wise enought to take advantage of the programs. They offer programs in AP Environmental study, Law Enforcement, Nursing and Health Care, Architectural Design, Engineering,Teaching and much more. There shouldn’t be any misconception that this is mostly for special ed. students in watered down classeswith no college future. Students graduate from their home schools with regent diplomas and have gone on to attend Cornell, URI, Boston University, NYU, Bryn Mawr, Tufts, RISD with many attending SUNY schools just to name a few. At one time students were able to attain a pilots license through Boces. Given there are 18 districts paying into the cost of salaries and retirement and with teachers contributing 10% toward there HC benefits, I would think the board would be spearheading an effort to participate more of our students and help expand the Boces programs instead of griping and looking for ways to opt out. We could use more programs in IT, Energy,Science with the Hudson Rv. and Sound as areas of research.Considering the cost of keeping teachers in district, shouldn’t CCSD look at more options that would spread salaries and benefits across districts. There are fewer elective options left at Greeeley for our students who are not interested in taking another Art or academic class. Students that succeed at Boces have an understanding of their strenghts,interest and a real world adaption of their education.
Come on people, you have lost the focus of this thread. The discussion is not about supporting our gifted students with AP classes, or supporting special needs students. We are required to be a part of BOCES. No choice there. If you have a problem with supporting AP classes, bring it to the Board of Ed budget process.
The issue is that BOCES must make costly capital improvements and they have a right to bill us for those. If our school district is required to pay a portion of BOCES’ operational budget, why is our BOE not familiar with it? Can we participate in the process? Vote on it? Are we represented? Why did BOCES wait until now to make these repairs all at once?
It is shocking to me that our current CCSD board of ed was not (is not) fully aware of our districts mandatory particpation in BOCES and its financial impact. Based on questions some school board members asked it is very clear they had no clue. For years we have been grappling with our budget and how best to deliver quality education, save teacher jobs, and maintain programs. How can our board of eduation be in the dark about our obligation to BOCES and the finacial impact it will have? Clearly, they have no plan and startegy if they didnt even understand it. Where was Cho and Mckay on this thre past year and why are we now “surpised”. What other programs will be cut or modified thus impacting our children? What will the adminstration and teachers share in meetng this obligation?
Excellent question to ask the Asst Sup of Bus. How often does he meet with counterparts and receive info on Bldg needs. Yearly? Semi-Yearly? Quarterly?? How ofter is the info brought to the Board for consideration. We expect the board to be kept current with district Capitol improvements needs. Are we not similarly tasked to keep current with off-site capitol improvements as well. How can we plan effectively for our budget with large hits like this. Is it that no info is forthcoming on a regular basis, are we failing to be proactive and seek up-dates. All one has to do is walk through the Blds at Boces and see areas crumbling and in need of repair. The roof is stepped and could possible have been addressed in manageable portions.
It may be important to ask the Boces Admin. what information meetings are held and does our designated Admin attend those meetings?
I had an opportunity to attend the Fall parent meeting at Boces and was disappointed to hear that our Principal did not attend the Principals meeting. Parhaps there was good reason. Are there other meetings or information opportunities not making the way back to our district??
What scheduled meeting are there? Who attends??
The School Board was not familiar with BOCES membership details, or our 2011/12 usage plan and total budget cost even though BOCES was on their 11/29/11 meeting agenda.
District taxpayers will need information about our BOCES usage, the cost, and how the CCSD can better align its expenditure and usage.
Regarding BOCES costs, we’ll need to see the trend line for the past 10 years, 2010/11 actual, 2011/12 projected actual, 2011/12 budget, and 2012/13 budget proposal. .
Does our Board of ed or the Business exec have any past information on the previous capitol expenditures to Boces?
When was the last time we paid out large amounts and what did that cover?
How often do these items come up?
Are they usually such a surprise. Are there any old timers out there who can remember any of our budget history with this?
“Assistant Superintendent for Business John Chow noted that, based on the BOCES proposal, there is no significant impact on CCSD’s budget until 2014-2015”. You can bet that our CCSD School Board will do little if anything about this ballooning obligation because it doesnt effect the budget for a few years. That is the way they operate - just like they are doing NOTHING today about our middle schools which everyone sees and knows must be reconfigured.
In this article alone 3 different adminstrators are quoted (McKay, Chow and Higgins)- how many do we have and how many do we need? 4 high school principals and asst principals , multiple asst superintendants all while our childrfens programs get cut. Based on our obligation to BOCES we must expect additional cuts to pay for this. Where is the Board of Ed? What are trhey doing and why didnt they even know many of the details and obligations related to BOCES obligations and usage…?
