With a crowded Tuesday evening for meetings that includes the Sloatsburg Board and Town of Ramapo Planning and Zoning Board meeting, it appears the Ramapo Central School District is poised to approve an agreement between the district and Woodmont Hills at Ramapo. What that particular agreement might be will be discussed as an action item at Tuesday’s Cherry Lane Elementary School meeting that takes place at 7:30 p.m.
Woodmont Properties will meet almost simultaneously at the Ramapo Town Hall to present its proposal to the PZB Tuesday evening at 8 p.m.
Ramapo School District Assistant Superintendent for Business Kelly Seibert, who heads transportation, finance, purchasing, and other matters for the district, failed to respond to questions related to Woodmont Hills and what the school district’s rules and practices are related to student transportation and private property. Ramapo Central School buses would have to enter the Woodmont Hills complex entirely to pick up and drop off student, or pull off on a de-acceleration easement along Rt. 17 during drive time traffic.
Student transportation along the narrow Rt. 17 corridor was a red flag issue at the late February Public Hearing on the development of a 16 building, 384 unit apartment complex in Western Ramapo. A Ramapo Central agreement with the Woodmont Hills project could strip away one of the development’s hurdles but would not alter the fundamental traffic-flow issue or fire safety issue building dense housing on a narrow transportation corridor would pose.
Woodmont Properties reportedly met with Sloatsburg Fire Department on fire safety issues but left the meetings without any conclusive framework of agreement. Sloatsburg at this time is not equipped with the proper apparatus for three-story structures, such as would be built at Woodmont Hills. The Sloatsburg Fire Department would not only need a ladder truck but also new firehouse to park such a truck.
Some opponents of the proposed development charge that the oversize rental apartments would be out of place both demographically and architecturally, with 16 three-story buildings dwarfing any similar structures in close proximity.
With the planned shuttering of the massive Novartis campus in Suffern, NY, the Ramapo School District may believe Woodmont Hills will eventually contribute to the purported $2.5 million in taxes the district will lose from the pharmaceutical giant’s closing.
Ramapo Central currently faces a $2.3 million deficit for the 2014-15 budget year, according to the district.
“Simply put, we are overspending our budget and dipping into savings to make up the difference,” stated Kelly Seibert, Asst. Superintendent of Business for the district. “We are spending down our reserves, which is unsustainable.”
NY State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli filed an audit report in 2013 that was critical of the Ramapo Central for cutting programs and personal in 2013-14 while sitting on a large reserve fund. The Comptroller’s audit report charged that the district had accumulated some $16.3 million in excess funds that could have been used in accordance with “applicable statutory requirements.” The Comptroller’s report was partially responsible for Superintendent Douglas Adams to state at an earlier board meeting held at Sloatsburg Elementary School that there will be no recommended program or personnel cuts for the 2014-15 school year.
Ramapo Central will experience a 1.85% budget-to-budget increase and has a NY State Comptroller allowable tax levy of .92%, which is derived from state funding formula.
Tuesday’s 6:30 p.m. budget meeting at Cherry Lane is the final Ramapo Central Budget Workshop of the year, with a Budget Adoption meeting scheduled for April 23. The location for that meeting is yet to be determined. The annual school board budget vote is scheduled for later in May.
