After many months of workshops, candid conversations, emotional meetings, and district number crunching, the due day has arrived. To bust or not to bust, you now decide.
Tuesday, May 21 is the day for residents to line up and put their X in the box and vote on the proposed 2013-2014 Ramapo Central Schools budget. Voters will also select two open board seats.
The proposed budget tops out at $128 million dollars with a tax levy of 1.99%, which is consistent with New York State’s tax cap law. The Ramapo Central School Board held a series of budget workshops and the end result is a budget that conforms with NY State levy requirements while also reducing a number of programs and staff to meet the budget shortfall.
Set for elimination in the current proposed budget are summer school, field trips, the Family Resource Center, Homework Club, dance programs, and specific extra duty reductions of more than $250,000 that include some club advisors and department chairs at district schools. Field trip elimination means all district sponsored outings, including the popular overnight stay at Camp Mariah.
Personnel cuts involve elementary library staff, teaching assistants, social workers, instructional technology staff, special education monitors, a school psychologist, a speech language therapist, a guidance counselor, and a school nurse.
The district slashed about 60 full-time positions and will use a chunk of its reserves, $1.2 million, to close an anticipated $10.6 million deficit.
The 2013/14 proposed budget is approximately a .74% budget-to-budget increase over last year’s budget (which was $127 million dollars). Board members considered overriding the state’s 2% tax-levy cap to offset program and staff cuts, but in the end voted for Superintendent Dr. Douglas Adams’ approach.
Simultaneous with the school budget vote, residents will make a decision on two open Ramapo Central Board of Education seats.
Incumbents Maureen Danzig and Clarke Osborn are up for reelection. Danzig is a district-based special education teacher with Rockland BOCES and was initially voted onto the board in 2010. Osborn is the Chief of Police for the Suffern Police Department, an adjunct professor at SUNY Rockland Community College, and President of the Police Chiefs Association of Rockland County. Osborn has been a member of the Board of Education since 2004.
Steve Forman, an assistant principal at Ramapo High School in the East Ramapo School District and Suffern, NY native, is running for a seat against the incumbents.
Ramapo Central School District residents vote on the RCSD proposed 2012-2013 budget Tuesday, May 21, as well as for two School Board seats. Sloatsburg residents can vote at Sloatsburg Elementary School from 6 a.m. through 9 p.m. For information related to voting, call 845-357-7783 (x11234).
