Superintendent Starts Budget Tour at Middle School

Superintendent Nancy Carney started a tour of the Riverhead Central School District schools on Tuesday night as she presented the district's budget for the 2011-2012 school year at the Riverhead Middle School. 

Over the next four Tuesdays, she will visit schools around the district and present the budget, in the meantime giving individual principals the opportunity to speak about how changes in the budget will impact their particular schools in the coming year.

Despite minimal increases in transportation and teaching costs, and a 2.8 percent cut in 'general support' line items - which includes administration costs, board of education costs, and operations - a sharp hike in employee benefits is expected to lead to an overall increase of 1.96 percent in spending next year. Coupled with a loss of state aid - proposed to be $2.6 million by Gov. Andrew Cuomo - and taxpayers in the school district could face a tax hike of 5.97 percent. 

Carney said that increases in employee benefits "will increase through 2013. We have been informed of that."

Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations, Joe Singleton, explained that due to poor performances over the past two to three years in the investments which were going to pay for future pensions, taxpayers - by law - must make up the difference.

In the quest to make any increase in taxes less of a burden on taxpayers, School Board President Ann Cotten-DeGrasse said that rather than axing entire programs, the cuts will "not come from one department, or one particular area. When we look at all the (decreases in spending), realize this is spread over the entire spectrum."

At Riverhead Middle School, Principal Andrea Pekar stated that cuts are unlikely to have much of an affect on the music and arts programs - actually Pekar stated that arts offerings continue to be on the rise in the school. In addition, the nine-period school day will remain, as will all after school clubs  - though Pekar said she is checking to make sure all have participation to keep the clubs going. 

However, average class sizes are expected to go up in social studies (from 24 to 28), math (25 to 28), physical education (34 to 37), and reach its contractual limit in science (23 to 24). 

"We did work hard together to make some really difficult decisions," Pekar said. "But as Ms. Cotten DeGrasse said, one of the things we focused on was making sure that programs were in tact and the changes were across the board."

The middle school is expected to lose the following support staff next year, Pekar said: 

• 1 security guard (three next year, down from four)
• 1 clerical position (5.5 next year)
• 1 maintenance mechanic (one next year)
• 1 library aide (zero next year)
• 1 part-time custodian

On the athletic fields, seventh and eighth grade teams - football, baseball, softball, and volleyball - will all be merged into a middle school team. Board member Greg Meyer, himself a volunteer middle school football coach, said the district should do its best to find some way to keep all kids active. 

"I've always been proud of the fact that Riverhead sports has a 'no-cut' policy - all kids get to play if they come out," he said. "But in football alone, we're going to have nearly 100 kids on the team. I'm sure it will be the same with volleyball. I don't know what we're going to do. This is worrisome."

Meyer suggested reaching out to the Police Athletic League to see if it may be able to hold on to some seventh graders to free up space on the middle school team. 

Members of the public who attended had little to say about the budget. One member made a numerical correction in the proposed budget, and another railed against charter schools. 

"They're not held to the same regulations that a regular school district is," said Nancy Gassert. "Whatever they want in their budget, they get. The sad part is, it's a for-profit school. And we pay for it."