> Back

$40.2 million school budget approved and two board members elected

Community investment and value in our schools
Last year’s budget was one of the toughest the Mohonasen community has had to face in years. District officials made the decision to cut 19 positions to help keep the tax rate increase in the single-digits while still maintaining quality programs to keep up with rising educational standards.

This year, the central question when developing the budget still holds true, “How can the district and our students continue to meet rising standards and rising costs?”

Mohonasen faced many challenges in developing next year’s budget, including continued rising costs for items such as health insurance, fuel and pensions, along with higher state and federal mandates, all complicated by a town-wide reassessment.

Thanks to an on-time state budget, school officials know that Mohonasen will gain approximately $1,617,159 in foundation aid or general operating aid, which means about a 16 percent increase in state aid.

“This increase in state aid is very important because the district can begin to conservatively build back some of the positions and programs it had to cut last year, use a portion of the money to lower the tax rate, and build back some of its reserves for the future,” said Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kathleen Spring.

“This year’s budget highlights include improving academic supports across all grade levels to help students achieve state standards, Regents graduation requirements, and the resources to help improve students’ overall achievement,” said Spring. “The changes that you see in the budget also reflect the district’s commitment to maintain a reasonable class size and address state mandates.”

At the high school, the following have been added in the proposed 2007-08 budget:

• A part-time (.4 FTE) foreign language teaching position to meet programmatic and enrollment needs;
• One full-time and one part-time (1.4 FTE) mathematics teaching position to meet new mandated math changes for next year and increasing enrollment;
• A part-time (.2 FTE) art teacher to address class size and BOCES classes; and
• A part-time (.2 FTE) social worker to keep up with mandates, programmatic needs and the increasingly complex needs of students.

At the middle school, the following have been added to the proposed 2007-08 budget:

• One part-time (.4 FTE) music teacher to meet programmatic and enrollment needs;
• A part-time (.3 FTE) alternative education position to provide more support for an Alternative Education program for non-disabled students;
• One part-time (.5 FTE) social worker to keep up with mandates and programmatic and student needs; and
• One part-time (.2 FTE) physical education teacher to keep up with enrollment and to provide instruction for BOCES classes.

At Pinewood Intermediate School:

• Academic Intervention Services (AIS) will be offered before and after school. This eliminates one full-time AIS reading teaching position and one full-time AIS math teaching position while still providing students with the academic help they need. This will be done without pulling students out of instruction during the school day;
• Implementation of one collaborative special education/regular education classroom at each grade level;
• Reduction of three teacher aide positions; and
• Reduction of one third-grade teaching position due to a decline in enrollment.

At Bradt Primary School:

• One half-time kindergarten teaching position may be eliminated, depending on enrollment; and
• One half-time school counseling position may be added if kindergarten enrollment is down.

Special Education:
This year’s budget calls for an approximate $1 million increase to keep up with new special education mandates and general costs. Special education costs comprise about 28 percent of the entire budget, and account for about 50 percent of the proposed budget increase. Administrators are consistently working to develop our special education program to better serve students in-district and meet state standards, examples are:

• Fine-tuning the alternative education programs (“Bridges”) for students with behavioral and social challenges at Draper and the high school;
• Piloting an alternative education program at Pinewood; and
• Using the collaborative model at Pinewood.

District:

• Addition of one director of counseling K-12. This position will be broken out into two responsibilities:
  — .6 FTE coordinator of counseling services; and
  — .4 FTE elementary counselor;
• A director of human resources/grant writing for programmaticneeds;
• Addition of an assistant treasurer to address mandates;
• One full-time academic administrator for humanities: English 7-12 and K-12 social studies;
• Increase assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction position from .6 FTE to full-time;
• Increase BOCES communications position from .6 FTE to full-time. This increases the position that was reduced last year;
• One full-time assistant principal at Pinewood;
• A full-time director of security position to increase security in the district and coordinate security activities and services;
• New lift in bus garage; and
• New operations and maintenance equipment.