B-B administrator speaks to NYS Assembly

Saying school districts are put into a "gambling mode" when the state doesn't pass its budget in a timely fashion, Byron-Bergen Superintendent of Schools Greg Geer, a guest speaker at a recent Assembly Minority Program Committee meeting, discussed the burden placed on districts in recent years.

"A late budget puts stressors on the public institutions that rely on them for funding," he said. "We have to try and guess what revenues the district can rely on."

Geer said with recent bare bones budgets passed by the state, many school districts made bad guesses, bad gambles, and are now having to lay off staff in order to make ends meet.

"It's extremely difficult for districts to make any long range plans when we have to wonder annually if there will be enough money to keep people on staff in order to implement the plans," Geer said.

The Byron-Bergen district consists of approximately 1,200 students, he said.

His testimony acknowledged that he knew the assembly was familiar with the educational reform movement that is occurring in New York but said as a superintendent attempting to implement those reforms and deliver "world class educational programming" to his district's children, he was hard pressed to do that when the district had no way of knowing the amount of funding that would be coming its way each year. "In addition to providing a superior educational atmosphere, I'm charged with the responsibility of ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent effectively and efficiently … we have to protect John Q. Public's hard-earned tax dollars."

Geer said the cost of running a school district continues to rise and districts are often beyond the cost of living or the formulas that drive state aid. "I have to grapple with building a budget that will pass a public vote while attempting to absorb the cost of rising health care premiums, powerful teachers unions asking for increases in salaries and benefits, energy rate increases, among other things," he said.

Mandates continue to flow down to the districts while appropriate resources to implement and offset their costs do not flow along with them, he said.

"A late state budget makes our budget planning process an exercise in gambling," he said. "Gambling with the education of 3.33 million of New York's children because of politics seems perverse and politicking with livelihoods and educational missions of the 257,000 professional staff people in the elementary and secondary schools is shortsighted."

Geer said it looks like state aid figures will remain pretty much flat this year and the costs to run the districts across the state, not only in Byron-Bergen, will be passed along to the taxpayers, he said.

Byron-Bergen's goal is to build process mechanisms into the school curriculum so the kids can be successful, Geer said, "but when the budget is tight and times are lean we can't build those skills at the speed we hope to."

Tax warrants have to be set so taxpayers know what to expect when they are asked to vote on the school budget. Without solid figures from the state, Geer said setting those warrants is sometimes a "shot in the dark."

"We try to squeeze efficiencies, evaluate programs and go from there," he said.

The recent glut of building aid offered to school districts may now be coming back to haunt them, Geer said. "The state has changed their formulas and stretched their amortization schedules … this means more costs have to be passed along to the taxpayers," he explained. "With the change in amortization schedules by the state, the districts have to bridge the gap between the schedule and the bond that was passed."

Last year, he said, state aid comprises 58.95 percent of Byron-Bergen's $14.9 million budget. Because of conservative budgeting practices, last year's "bare bones" budget strategy is only haunting the district to a small extent compared with other districts, Geer said.

Geer urged lawmakers to work together toward a workable budget that is passed in a timely fashion. "Two year plans for education aid would allow for long range planning … end revenue uncertainties by installing the previous year's budget if no new budget is in place by April 1. "

He said that for school districts, knowing something is better than knowing nothing. In his presentation, he asked the assembly to end the gambling that school leaders are forced to engage in because of past budget practices. "Have the courage to say enough is enough and provide us with the tools to end uncertainty and waste in the education of our children."