Sometimes it’s all about balancing out the bitter with the sweet. The Ramapo Central Board of Education met this week and did just that with a brainstorming budget workshop followed by a more light-hearted student awards presentation.

The BOE kicked off the evening with its first in a series of 2013-14 budget workshops that will tackle a projected $6 million budget shortfall due to rising costs and potential revenue reduction for the 2013-14 year. It’s a complicated process that involves district teacher and employee contracted salaries and benefits, curriculum expansion, issues of the state imposed tax cap and tax levy, and use of the district’s budget reserve use. The budget workshops — which run through April — have been scheduled by Superintendent Dr. Douglas Adams to sort through BOE options and actions.

Much of the unresolved issues are rooted in the BOE making a budget that involves fluctuating state monies that won’t be finalized and distributed until the second half of the actual budget year. Got that? If nothing else, it appears the district is in the best possible hands for a soft landing. The superintendent and company are fully engaged in the process, but there will be pain involved. It’s just not clear yet where the cuts will come from.

The public is encouraged to attend the BOE workshops.

On the sweet side of the evening’s agenda, Dr. Adams and BOE President Craig Long officially recognized the high achieving ways of several district students. Suffern High School has three official National Merit Scholar finalists this year that the board recognized: Estella Chen, Hannah Lipstein and Benjamin Silver. The three placed among the stop scorers nationwide on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test.

Six other SHS students received letters of commendation in recognition of their high test scores and outstanding promise, and included Jeremy Brown, Dylan Finley, Adam Plumer, Alexander Poste, Jason Wienberg, and Amy Zhan.

Brown and Finley were on hand and received a certificate of achievement from the BOE. Finley is also an officer in the National Honor Scoeity and has a lead role in the school’s spring musical production of West Side Story, where he plays Shark, Bernardo. Silver plays opposite Finley, as Jet nemeis, Riff, in the musical.

Silver was also acknowledged for reaching the semifinalist round in the Intel Science Talent Search for 2013. The nation’s oldest and most prestigious pre-college science competition, Silver was one of 300 semifinalists selected from more than 1,700 entrants.

Silver developed his science project as part STIR (Scientific & Technological Investigative Research), a three-year science research program at SHS that’s governed by State University of New York at Albany. STIR students design and conduct authentic, graduate-level research with the guidance of a professional mentor. Over its 17-year history at Suffern High School, STIR has produced one Intel Finalist and more than 10 Semifinalists.

Sloatsburger and recent his Eagle Scout Matthew Leanza was also acknowledged by Dr. Adams and Long. The Sloatsburg SHS sophomore was awarded a certificate for earning his Eagle Scout wings with a project that involved rebuilding the dilapidated greenhouse and garden at Sloatsburg Elementary School. Dr. Adams said that Leanza was such a good fundraiser that when the local PTA donated $300 toward the project, Leanza returned the favor and donated $318 back to the PTA in leftover funds from his project piggy bank.

Photos are of Dylan Finley and Matthew Leanza in Eagle Scout attire.