AP Community

This is in circulation and came to me as a forward from another person. Very well thought out, with interesting points.

If the author would like it removed please contact me.

The State Budget is done and the State aid for our district is known.  The last estimated shortfall for APCS before the additional State aid was $2.8 million assuming a 3.95% tax levy increase that would require a simple majority.  The next step is for the Board of Education to decide on a tax levy rate increase and a package of cuts to balance the budget to be put forth to residents on May 15. 

  
The Superintendent's office continues to negotiate with the teacher's union on a new contract that could potentially alleviate some of the proposed cuts and teacher layoffs, however it is unclear if that will be completed before final decisions on the budget need to be made.  Teacher contracts are usually multi-year contracts so we have one bite at the apple for a few years here.  Albany and South Colonie teachers have both made considerable concessions in recent contracts, including pay freezes and foregoing contractual salary increases.

This year there are two board members (Chris Foster and Jessica Zweig) up for re-election.  Both of these members (along with two others) were part of a 4 to 3 majority approval of pay raises for administrators in earlier March, just a week after being presented with a $4.7 million budget deficit.  These members justified the raises as necessary given the lack of raises in prior years, however public records available on the Empire Center for NYS Policy show that both the assistant superintendents and other administrative staff have seen increases in their salary base over the past few years. For example, one particular administrative staff salary increased from $99,517 in 2008 to $119,907 in 2011 -- that is a 20% increase over three years -- probably from automatic step increases and arguably deserved.  However, the approval of these raises when faced with a funding crisis and in the midst of negotiating a teacher contract leads me to question the fiscal responsibility of these board members. 

As the Board of Education makes decisions on the initial budget and considers a new teacher contract I have made some suggestions (below).  If you also support any of these ideas or have others that should be considered, I would recommend that you e-mail or talk to board members in the next few days to ensure that they represent the community who has elected them.  The board has consistently requested input from the community through forums, e-mail and the recent survey. 

Suggestions:     

1.    A new teacher's contract should (1) raise employee health insurance premium shares to a minimum of 25% for a family plan (they pay 10-15% currently depending on when they were hired) or ideally the same level that others employed professionals in region pay (e.g., professional NY State employees pay 30% for a family plan); (2) have minimal, if any, salary increases for the first few years above the annual increases guaranteed over the 23 year step increments; and (3) eliminate FREE health insurance to married couples working in the district per Article 20 section 1-d of the current contract.  

The latter is rather surprising and most folks don’t know it exists.  A current example of the free health insurance is a recently retired employee collecting a pension of $95,000 and his spouse a currently employed teacher making over $100,000 pay $0 for towards their health insurance.  In addition, according to the Empire Center for NYS Policy that receives payroll data from the NYS Comptroller the average salary for top 35 APCS employees (excluding the Superintendent) enrolled in the Teacher retirement system increased by 17% over a 3 year period (2008 to 2011) from an average of $90,000 to $105,000.  For most employees, this salary represents a 9 to 10 month work schedule, which if equated to a 12 month work scheduled would range from $110,000 to $125,000. 

2.    While the timing of a new contract is unknown and may be difficult to count on before the budget, the BOE should consider offering a contract that produces savings equal to the proposed job cuts and allow the teachers to make a choice to save jobs and protect the education of the children.

3.    Does each of the three superintendents need their own assistant?  Probably not a cut the Superintendent would recommend to the BOE as they have to face their assistants each morning, but maybe the BOE should ask that it be included, as well as other cuts that the superintendent’s office would not put on the table.  Reducing administrative staff is preferable to instructional staff.

4.    Do we really need 3 psychologists and 2 assistant principals at the high school?  Could we replace a psychologist with a less costly social worker?  I hope the BOE seriously considers and incorporates the survey results from the community they represent in the final budget as most respondents flagged both these resources as lower priorities. 

5.    Another possible way to achieve savings would be to consider some type of pay lag in the contract to achieve one-time savings -- while this does not address the long-term unsustainable budget problem we have it would help us through this year, which is consistent with our one year at time strategy.

6.    The BOE should request multi-year budgets so that the future fiscal implications are known.  It is difficult to ask the voter to consider tax increases absent any discussion of the potential impact on next year and any longer term actions being taken to bring the budget in balance. 

Finally, while I believe that there are inequities in the State’s formula for school aid that need to be addressed, the likelihood of increases in State aid in the near future are minimal.  Redistributions of the total aid set aside for districts is where the fight should be focused.  In the meantime, we need to address growing expenses while trying to preserve our children’s education.  I am open to a tax levy increase above the 3.95% cap; however I would be more amenable to that approach if it was complemented with a teacher contract that reduced the district’s share of health insurance costs to provide long-term savings, and included no salary increases.  If we can accomplish this, we will begin to control costs over the long-term and then teachers and the community can lobby on a unified front for more equitable State aid distributions.