No layoffs

By Bob Quinn CENTRAL VALLEY — The 2012-13 budget that Monroe-Woodbury Schools Superintendent Edward J. Mehrhof will recommend to the school board in two weeks won’t contain any layoffs.

What this means is that the Monroe-Woodbury School District will once again present voters with a proposed spending plan that retains much of its staff and programs without the kind of cuts in programs and layoffs seen in some other school districts in Orange County and elsewhere in the Hudson Valley.

The current budget is about $150 million. Spending next year is expected to increase by less than one percent; the tax levy will be no more than two percent – what’s required under Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tax cap.

There may be fewer employees at the start of the 2012-13 school year in September as there is still time between now and the end of this school year for staff members to put in retirement papers. Also, several administrators are considering incentive packages to retire, but those decisions won’t be known for several weeks.

From there to here School officials at Wednesday’s school board meeting said as many as 84 positions were in jeopardy early in the budget process – 42 staff members whose positions were funded this school year through $1.5 million in federal jobs money, plus another 42 positions in the coming year. Included in the second group of full and part-time employees were several teachers, monitors and other staff throughout the district.

School officials said funding for all these jobs would be on a year-by-year basis.

“It is terrifying to live year-by-year,” School Board President Dr. Michael DiGeronimo said, “but what is the alternative?”

In his comments at the end of the meeting, Mehrhof described the prospect of laying off people as “agonizing.... These are hard-working, decent people who would have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.”

He also said he expects that as many as 600 jobs in education would be lost throughout Orange County this year, or as many as were lost a year ago.

“This is not just a loss of a job,” he said. “It is a loss of a career.”

Board Vice President Erich Tusch also noted that the loss of jobs would have translated into the loss of programs.

‘Snap shot’ Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Brian C. Monahan provided a “snap shot” of where personnel costs for the coming school year stood:

Fringe benefits Fringe benefits which cover retirement costs, would increase to $36,818,000 next year. That would be a 4.27 percent or $1,489,584 over current costs.

Monahan noted that those figures are controlled by Albany. “We are handed the bill,” Monahan said, “and we pay it.”

District-wide salary costs District-wide salary costs in 2012-13 would increase to $80,457,046. The would be an increase of 2.25 percent, or $1,770,000.

Combined, personnel costs would increase by 2.86 percent, or $3,259,887, in the next school year.

How did they do it? So, if personal expenses are up by more than $3 million, how it is it that there are no layoffs? School officials cited a number of factors:

The upgrade in Moody’s financial rating lowered the interest rates the district pays when it borrows money. This has saved millions, Assistant Superintendent for Business Jeffrey White said.

Restructuring of the district’s debt. The debt totals about $100 million. When Moody’s Investment Service upgraded the district’s rating, that enabled White to refinance and save about $1.5 million last year. The district expects a further upgrade, and therefore further savings in the coming years.

School officials also credited Transportation Director Clifford Berchtold and his staff for finding efficiencies (read money) by restructuring bus routes.

The elimination of the MTA tax.

In his closing remarks, DiGeronimo noted that the district has cut $27 million from its spending in the last four years since the introduction of zero-based-budgeting. That’s an approach to spending that demands an annual examination of all costs and programs, rather than an incremental add-on to current spending.

The school board president also noted that the state has taken $27 million from the district is various forms of aid and unfunded mandates.

“We have a prudent, financial plan,” DiGeronimo said. “We know where we are going.”