March 19, 2010
by Susie Pender
This past Tuesday, the Chappaqua school board continued its in-depth review of Superintendent David Fleishman’s proposed 2010-11 budget. Thus far the administration has presented detailed budgets for Curriculum and Technology (February 23). Next week, on March 23, the topics will be Athletics and the Non-instructional budgets. On April 13, the final topic will be Revenues and Tax Rates.
At last Tuesday’s school board meeting, Superintendent Fleishman and his staff presented the details of the proposed 2010-11 school budgets for Special Education and Buildings & Grounds and Operations & Maintenance. The power point presentations for these topics, as well as the topics from February 23, are available on the district’s website at ccsd.ws.
The proposed Special Education budget for 2010-11
Dr. Jerry Wishner, director of special education and related services, presented the Special Education Initiatives for the upcoming year:
* Expanding our understanding of the potential of inclusive education and practice;
* Continuing the collaborative integration of general and special education; and
* Sustaining program, specifically the Transition Support Program, Pathways, Intensive Integrated Services Model and Behavioral Consultation.
Dr. Wishner explained that the Special Education budget is based on the actual recommendations made by the Committee for Special Education (CSE) for services to be provided to students and state mandates. The staffing level in each building follows from that. Consequently, it is not a budget in which there can be found substantial savings.
The facts underlying the Special Education budget
In a series of power point slides, Dr. Wishner identified by category the students in the district with special needs and identified by category where these students with special needs attend school.
Out of 4291 students in the Chappaqua Central School District this school year, 502 were identified as students with special needs. The number of students in each special needs category is as follows:
* 89 Preschool (3-5 years) with Individual Education Plans
* 144 Section 504 – students who need accommodation, such as extra time for testing
* 58 Autism
* 1 Deafness
* 41 Emotional Disability
* 4 Hearing Impairment
* 137 Learning Disabilities
* 1 Mental Retardation
* 19 Multiple Disabilities
* 2 Orthopedic Impairment
* 118 Other Health Impairment
* 121 Speech or Language Impairment
Of these 502 special needs students, 443 of them attend school in the district; 13 attend school at BOCES; 4 attend school at other public schools; 6 attend school at approved private schools; 12 are in residential placements; 2 receive home-based instruction and 22 have been placed in private schools by their parents. (The district does not fund this last category.) In total, the district pays for 37 students to be educated outside the district, down from 40 last year.
In his overview comments, Superintendent Fleishman made a point to remind the board that 75% of the special education budget, once salaries are backed out, is the cost of paying for students to be educated outside of the district. The board discussed two considerations: trying to bring more students back into the district and the possibility of increasing revenue from bringing special needs students into the district from other local districts who might be well-served by the special education infrastructure in place here. These suggestions, it was decided, required careful study and were not the kind of thing a district should rush into, so they were set aside for purposes of the 2010-11 budget.
In his 2010-11 proposed budget, Dr. Wishner had three staffing changes: a reduction of .5 special education teacher in the middle schools; a reduction of a full-time special education in the elementary schools and a reduction of .2 administrator. All three of these staffing changes were dictated by the actual CSE recommendations and school-based caseloads. There are no proposals for any changes in the models of service delivery.
Buildings & Grounds/Operations & Maintenance proposed 2010-11 budget
Joseph Gramando, the director of buildings, grounds and security, presented the proposed 2010-11 Buildings and Grounds budget, which deals primarily with custodial services, and the proposed 2010-11 Operations and Maintenance budget, which deals primarily with maintenance of the physical plant of the district.
Gramando outlined his 2010-11 goals for the district:
* To maintain our facilities through preventative maintenance;
* To go green;
* To provide training for staff.
He also provided general information about the district’s physical plant as a context for his budget presentation.
* The district contains more than 900,000 square feet of building space that must be maintained daily.
* The school buildings are open 15 hours a day.
* The building and grounds staff maintains 25 acres of playing fields.
* There are more than 675 pieces of HVAC equipment to maintain.
The productivity of his staff is impressive. The cleaning guideline set by the state comptroller’s office is 18,000-20,000 square feet per full time employee. The average for local districts is 19,000-23,000 square feet per full time employee. The average for Chappaqua is 28,914 per full time employee.
Similarly, the industry standard for a full time maintenance mechanic is 80,000-90,000 square feet. Chappaqua averages 137,000 square feet per full-time mechanic.
For next year’s budget, Gramando was able to reduce staff by one custodian and one maintenance person. In fact, the custodian resigned at the end of November 2009 and the maintenance mechanic retired at the end of January 2010. Neither position was filled for the remainder of this school year nor will they be filled next year. This reduction saved approximately $125,000 in next year’s budget. Gramando was able to find an additional $100,000 in non-salary expenditures as well.
An additional $600,000 will be shifted from the Buildings and Grounds and Operations and Maintenance budgets to Debt Service under the Energy Performance Contract that the district initiated this year. “The Energy Performance Contract,” explained John Chow, Assistant Superintendent for Business, “ is for capital projects that have an energy-saving capability, specifically a savings in heating fuel, gas or electricity.”
“For example, under this contract we will replace the boilers at the three elementary schools. Bell and the high school already have new boilers and Seven Bridges is new. The new boilers will be more efficient. The savings from that efficiency will pay the principal and interest on the money borrowed to replace the boilers,” explained Chow.
The anticipated cost of the Energy Performance Contract is $12 million dollars, according to Chow. State aid will cover 23.6% of that, and the savings from the efficiencies will cover the rest, he added.
Click HERE for collected articles on the 2010-2011 budget process.
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