Ossining UFSD Sends Tax Cap-Compliant Budget to Voters

Teacher's aide eliminations, modified sports cuts and no replacement deputy superintendent are among the reductions proposed in the $110,433,452 budget figure going to a vote for Ossining Union Free School District residents.

"We have discussed this at length for months," Board of Education Bill Kress stated at the April 23 meeting. "There is nothing in this budget we haven't discussed at numerous meetings throughout the year, especially at the mini lessons."

Kress and his six school board colleagues unanimously voted to adopt the budget at the meeting, which, with a 3.4 percent tax levy increase, keeps the district belows its allowable 3.56 percent increase under the state's tax cap. The total figure represents a 3.61 percent increase over the current academic year's budgeted expenditures.

This means a projected 3.49 percent tax rate increase for Ossining residents, 7.43 percent increase for New Castle residents and 5.07 percent for Yorktown residents.

"We stayed within the cap and we are still offering a tremendous amount in the budget," Board Member Graig Galef stated. "There are still unbelievable things in the budget."

View the full budget document here.

Board members hailed the 2013-14 budget process as a lengthy and thorough affair that included community input throughout.

Despite that, financial restrictions left the district with a final product that was less than ideal, the board said.

"We had to find creative solutions and...they are compromises," noted Vice President Dana Levenberg. "This is not what we wish we could do in a perfect world, but what we feel we had to do."

Said Superintendent Raymond Sanchez, "These were not easy decisions and they weren't decisions that we wanted to make alone."

And when community members rejected a memorandum in mid-April that would have cut back on a number of bus routes, the board had to consider alternatives to the approximately $413,262 it estimated saving if the measure had passed.

Under the adopted budget, the modified sports program will no longer be interscholastic. Instead, seventh and eighth graders will compete internally through "intrasquad scrimmages."

While Galef wondered if in the future the board should "proactively" reach out to groups affected by the budget, "As a PTA leader, I have addressed the board many, many, many times about modified sports," Beth Sniffen said.

Sniffen suggested the district consider future grant monies be allocated to the modified sports program.

Other proposed cuts include 1.5 full-time equivalent enrichment positions, a reduction in $337,00 in transportation costs and a 0.5 full-time equivalent health teacher at Ossining High School.

"There's a lot of shared sacrifice in this budget," said Board Member Frank Schnecker, who warned against the "dramatic implications" if it does not pass on May 21.

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Sanchez and Assistant Superintendent for Business Alita Zuber will present the budget on Friday, May 10 at 6:45 p.m. at Park School in Spanish.

The official district budget hearing is Tuesday, May 14 at Roosevelt School. The annual district budget vote and Board of Education election is Tuesday, May 21 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Ossining High School gymnasium.