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Schools

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Superintendent James Grossane file photo

The Smithtown school board voted to close Branch Brook Elementary School at a board of education meeting Tuesday, effective June 30, 2017. Five board members, including President Christopher Alcure, were in favor of the closure. Gladys Waldron, the board’s longest tenured member, was responsible for the lone “no” vote.

“For four years we’ve made cuts to the program, and it is not a proposition that I would like to continue,” Alcure said following the meeting. “We have declining enrollment. We have space in other buildings. Due to the fact that Branch Brook is one of the smaller buildings, and in my mindset we needed to close a building, and if we kept that open and closed one of the other ones and we had a sudden, unexpected uptick in enrollment, Branch Brook could not accommodate being one of seven schools. If we have an uptick in enrollment in two or three years when Branch Brook is closed, we’ll be able to absorb about 1,200 kids, and that was my deciding factor.”

Closing at least one elementary school has been an intensely debated issue between the community, the school board and district administration since the middle of November when Superintendent James Grossane presented the findings of a housing committee that was assembled earlier in 2015. Grossane presented the board with five options as cost saving measures.

Closing Branch Brook was a part of four of the five options. Tuesday’s vote sealed the fate of Branch Brook, though Grossane will take his time in selected one of the four options from his November proposal, he said. More debate is still to come about what happens to students in the seven elementary schools that are not closing to make room for those leaving Branch Brook.

With emotions running high and a filled-to-capacity auditorium in the New York Avenue building that serves as district headquarters in Smithtown, the vote was received with anger and sadness from the community.

Katie Healy has been one of the most outspoken Branch Brook parents throughout the process.

“If I choose to stay, I will hold each and every one of you accountable and likely pushing one of you out,” Healy said to the five board members who voted yes. “I will be okay, and I will fight for those that will have a tough time but I will be there to show you that your losses are greater than your gains. If I choose to stay in this state I will hold you accountable…shame on you.”

School board meetings and public work sessions had taken on some added emotion leading up to Tuesday, though emotions boiled over following the vote. One parent was removed by security after the meeting was over after yelling at members of the board. One was warned twice by Grossane for using profanity during her allotted public comment time.

Peter Troiano was one of the parents responsible for the Save Branch Brook movement on Facebook and an Internet petition.

“I’ll keep this quick,” Troiano said Tuesday as he addressed the board. “You’re all incompetent. You shouldn’t have signed up for this job if you couldn’t do it right. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. I don’t know how you sleep at night. You disgust me. And rest assured, this isn’t over. We plan on taking further action so get ready.”

Troiano dropped the microphone to the ground and exited following his comments. He did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate about his future plans.

Waldron defended her position to oppose closing Branch Brook to applause from the hundreds in attendance. The idea of selling the administration building on New York Avenue has been a rallying cry for the Save Branch Brook community members, though little progress has been made.

“The only reason why I am not in favor of closing a school, whether it be Branch Brook or any other school, is that I think our energies and effort of administration and board should be placed right now on the selling of this building,” Waldron said.

The necessity to close a school, according to Grossane and his administration, can be attributed to declining enrollment and revenue. Andrew Tobin, the district’s assistant superintendent for finance and operations, has said in the past that a deficit is on the horizon for the district.

“I can’t tell you that 2017-18 will be the deficit year, but it’s becoming more and more likely as we look out ahead that 2017-18, maybe 2018-19, if we don’t get those type of increases, we know our expenses are going to go up, we’re going to certainly be facing it at some point,” Tobin said at a public work session on Jan. 19.

Grossane responded following the meeting to claims from some community members that the decision to close Branch Brook has been inevitable since his presentation in November.

“This decision wasn’t made months ago,” he said. “It was very careful. It was very measured. The committee did a lot of work. They brought the material. I reviewed it.”

Grossane said that a lot of time and work went into the decision, and that it bothered him that some in the community perceived it differently.

Grossane’s November report estimated that closing an elementary school would save the district about $725,000 annually. Tobin said that Tuesday’s decision should relieve some of the financial trouble that the district is anticipating in the future, though their work is not done.

School board meetings since November have been well attended by parents wearing blue Save Branch Brook T-shirts. They submitted their own sixth option for the board’s consideration, which was assembled by parents in the statistical analysis field. Option 6 concluded that Branch Brook made the least sense for closure of the eight elementary schools, based on projected enrollment decrease over the next 10 years, building occupancy, square foot per student, students per usable classroom and utility cost.

Grossane defended his suggestion that Branch Brook made the most sense for closure at the Jan. 19 work session. Closing Branch Brook would do the least damage to the discrepancy of elementary students being on track to attend either High School East or High School West when they reach ninth grade, according to Grossane’s data. Additionally, because Branch Brook is the smallest of the eight schools in terms of capacity, its closure would leave the district least vulnerable to overcrowding if there were a future increase in enrollment.

Closing Branch Brook should increase average class size, though Grossane called instances where any classes would reach a district implemented maximum of 28 students “outliers,” on Jan. 19.

“Every school has a grade level that runs almost to maximum,” Grossane said. “If we close a building and we operate with seven, those outliers would smooth out. They’d shift. There would still be an outlier occasionally in every building. I’m not going to tell you there isn’t going to be a class in fifth grade that doesn’t have a 28 at some point within the next six years after we close a building, because there definitely will be. But it’s usually one grade per building. Most times, the class averages even out across the district.”

School board member Grace Plourde presented discussions on Feb. 9 from an earlier business affairs meeting regarding the budget for 2016-17. The deficit that Tobin suggested to be on the horizon was not expected to occur for the 2016-17 school year, mainly due to a low number of retirement payments. Tobin said Tuesday that the district is in “golden years for pension reprieve,” though he expects that to change in the near future.

“We may find that we’re not in the kind of trouble that we have been in in prior years,” Plourde said. “Our preliminary budget is looking pretty stable. We’re anticipating that at this point we’re not going to have to make the kinds of painful cuts that we’ve had to make in prior years, but again it’s not because we’re getting the kinds of revenue we need to get.”

Harborfields High School. Photo by Victoria Espinoza

Harborfields Central School District is one step closer to technological improvements thanks to its utilization of New York State’s Smart Schools Bond Act.

At a school board meeting last week, Jordan Cox, executive director of institutional services, presented a $1 million investment plan that focuses on improving the district’s Internet connectivity operations by utilizing the bond.

“We’re looking for something that’s going to be long-term,” Cox said. “Something that we can make an investment in that’s going to last 10-plus years.”

The Smart Schools Bond Act, passed in 2014, authorized the issuance of $2 billion in general obligation bonds to finance improved education technology and infrastructure. Over the last two years, Cox said district officials have been meeting to determine what the highest priorities are for bond funds.

Once they narrowed in on Internet connectivity, a plan was created to update the “aging architecture to support high-speed traffic requirements for online productivity and assessment operations,” he said.

The entire plan included two projects — one $921,000 plan focusing on upgrading infrastructure and the other $177,000 plan on centralizing all district servers.

Cox said that Harborfields was using outdated equipment and upgrading it to support high-bandwidth and wireless devices would help the district support more devices at once.

“We’re talking about the bones that you don’t see behind the walls that allow us to keep the connectivity day-to-day within schools,” Cox said of the infrastructure.

The second part of the plan Cox pitched concentrated on centralizing all servers to help reduce the amount of data center equipment required, which he said would cut costs and negate the need of system downtime.

Cox said that fewer servers and less networking gear would mean less equipment would be required, lowering monthly power and cooling costs. Cox also said that the more programs and devices added to the district, the “more critical that our Internet connectivity does not have any down time.”

In his presentation, Cox said Harborfields would receive about $1.3 million from the state through the bond. These two projects should cost about $1 million, leaving $223,656 left over, he said.

Cox also said that the money from this bond does not expire and can be carried into the next school year. So if Harborfields does not use its full amount immediately, it does not lose the surplus.

Going forward, Cox said this plan needed to be approved by the board of education before the district can submit an online application. He also said the turnaround time from the state is unknown because Harborfields is one of the first districts to complete the process.

The school district did not confirm whether the board has approved the plan.

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The Smithtown Central School District is gearing up for another budget season, but officials say this year might not be as financially difficult as administrators had anticipated. File photo

Budget season has arrived in Smithtown, and district administrators said they anticipated a bigger budget to be matched by more state funding.

The Smithtown Central School District held a business affairs committee meeting recently with district administrators and board of education representatives to mull over potential budgetary options facing them. Board member Grace Plourde presented the discussions from that meeting to the public Feb. 9 along with a first draft of the pending $233,476,414 school district budget.

The projected budget for the 2016-17 school year is about $4 million higher than the budget for the current school year, she said. That increase, however, would be covered in large part by a projected 0.8 percent increase in the tax levy and an increase in state aid from a partial restoration of money lost to the Gap Elimination Adjustment, a policy enacted for the 2010-11 fiscal year which cut into state aid for New York State school districts in an effort to close a large budget deficit.

An increase in funding from the state would mean a smaller increase in taxes for Smithtown residents.

“We may find that we’re not in the kind of trouble that we have been in in prior years,” Plourde said. “Our preliminary budget is looking pretty stable. We’re anticipating that at this point we’re not going to have to make the kinds of painful cuts that we’ve had to make in prior years, but again it’s not because we’re getting the kinds of revenue we need to get.”

A rise in salaries for district employees accounts for the majority of the $4 million increase from the 2015-16 budget, according to Andrew Tobin, the district’s assistant superintendent for finance and operations.

The district is currently in the midst of a heated debate over potential cost-saving measures while grappling with declining enrollment and a potential deficit in the near future, Tobin added.

Plourde said that stability in the projected 2016-17 budget could be attributed to a low number of required retirement payouts, which is not to be expected every year.

“We’re continuing to hope to hang on to the kind of quality programing that we’re used to around here, but we need to be smart,” Plourde said. “We need to always be looking ahead.”

Superintendent James Grossane has recommended closing at least one of the district’s eight elementary schools, an option that would save the district about $725,000 annually, he said. Parents in the district, however, have said they would prefer that the district sold or repurposed their administration headquarters located on New York Avenue, Smithtown instead. The building hasn’t been used for instruction in several years.

The next budget workshop will be held on Tuesday, March 1, at 7 p.m. at the New York Avenue headquarters. A decision on the fate of the district’s elementary schools is expected in the coming weeks.

Diana Todaro speaks during the budget presentation at the board of education meeting on Wednesday night. Photo by Victoria Espinoza.

Budget season has come to the Harborfields Central School District, and residents could be in for a budget that pierces the tax levy cap.

At a Board of Education meeting on Wednesday night, Assistant Superintendent for Administration and Human Resources Francesco Ianni presented options the district has to choose from for the 2016-2017 budget, calling it an “evolving process.” Harborfields was given a small tax levy cap increase from the state, which means that the district may have to consider piercing the cap if they want to provide any new programs, or face a budget with no additions to stay within the cap.

“Approximately 17 percent of the annual budget that is coming from state aid, but that number is fluctuating everyday,” Ianni said at the meeting. “Reserve funds will account for about 7 percent, and 76 percent of the budget is coming from the community.”

The main concern with this year’s budget, Ianni said, is the .37 percent tax levy increase cap, which is limiting the district’s ability to even rollover last year’s budget. A rollover budget is the same budget as the year before.

The 2015-2016 budget was roughly $80 million, and if a rollover budget were used this year, the total would be approximately $81 million, with an increase of $1,159,907.

If the rollover budget passed, there would need to be a tax levy increase of .84 percent, according to the district, which is .47 percent more than what the state is mandating. If the district abides by the state tax levy increase cap, they will be $287,408 short of the rollover budget total.

Those variables leave the district with some options, Ianni said.

A budget within the tax levy would be $81,346,454, the district said. This would require the district to not only refuse any new mandates or potential additions like full-day kindergarten, but also to cut costs.

But if the district decided to pierce the tax cap, Ianni presented several different budgetary routes the district could take. One is what he described as the simple rollover budget, which would require less than .5 percent of an increase in the tax cap and bring the total budget to $81,633,862.

“But, what if we add some mandates?” Ianni asked during the presentation.

The district presented a potential budget that included mandates like an additional librarian, AIS teacher and an English as a New Language teacher, which would bring the budget to $81,833,862 and a tax levy increase of 1.17 percent.

Ianni said the third possible scenario is the most costly because of additions like $600,000 for full-day kindergarten, $20,000 for a teacher’s assistant testing room and anywhere from $100,000 to $150,00 for a BOCES cultural arts program. The total here brings the budget to about $82.6 million, and would bring the tax levy cap to 2.57 percent.

Ianni said the district has not made any decisions yet as to which budget they would pursue, and would continue to discuss options at various workshops and community forums over the coming weeks.

The next upcoming budget meeting was scheduled for March 5 at 9 a.m.

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Kids are dismissed early from Port Jefferson’s middle and high schools on a previous snow day. File photo by Michael Ruiz

Slippery conditions and cold temperatures are a couple of reasons to hate snow, and now Port Jefferson kids and parents have another one: cutting into the school break.

Despite a handful of snowfalls, with the help of the heaviest of them falling on a weekend, the school district has kept closings to just two days — last Friday and Monday. But those instruction days still have to be made up at some point, so that the district stays in compliance with state education regulations regarding the minimum number of school days.

Superintendent Ken Bossert said at the Port Jefferson Board of Education meeting on Tuesday night that, as a result, the snow will dig into April. The first lost day will be made up on Friday, April 22, which was originally scheduled as a staff conference day, and the other will be made up on Monday, April 25, which was supposed to be the first day of spring break.

Delayed openings and early dismissals, which the school district also uses to ensure student safety during snow events, do not affect the count of instruction days and thus do not have to be made up elsewhere.

If there are any more storms that precipitate school closings, each instruction day missed will be redeemed during the spring break, according to Bossert, cutting deeper into that vacation time.

The superintendent explained that due to the way the school calendar was designed in the 2015-16 school year, with a late Labor Day and the way the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur fell, the calendar was “much less flexible with building in snow days.”

Next year is shaping up to be different. The school board approved a 2016-17 calendar on Tuesday night that starts a couple of days earlier than the current year and has five snow days built in from the get-go.

“And we can actually do more than that without encroaching on religious observances and things like that,” Bossert said.

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Rella speaks out against standardized testing in 2015. File photo

A community and school district stalwart will be returning to his position for at least one more year, following a unanimous school board vote to extend his contract.

“I know where I’m going next year now, thank you,” Superintendent Joe Rella said to applause when the board vote to extend his contract passed at Monday’s board of education meeting. “Nowhere.”

Rella has opposed extending his contract any further than the 2016-17 school year, according to Susan Casali, the district’s assistant superintendent for business.

The extension came with a 2 percent pay raise, bringing Rella’s salary to $212,160 for the next school year. His health care contributions are remaining the same, with him kicking in 17 percent to his premiums.

Many Comsewogue residents as well as those within the greater Long Island and New York State areas know Rella for his vocal opposition to state testing and the Common Core Learning Standards. He has hosted or attended numerous protests and forums on the topics, and spoken against the standardized testing practices that he says are harmful to children.

The superintendent started working in Warriors country as a music teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School. Before becoming a district administrator, he served as the Comsewogue High School principal.

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Housing committee member Annemarie Vinas addresses the school board at Tuesday’s meeting. Photo by Alex Petroski

With a possible deficit looming, the Smithtown Central School District board of education is moving closer to a decision on the fate of its eight elementary schools, following a public work session on Jan. 19 and a board meeting on Jan. 26.

Discussions between the school board and the community were getting emotional this week.

Superintendent James Grossane, with the help of Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Andrew Tobin, backed up his five recommendations to the school board from a November 2015 housing report with statistics at the work session on Jan. 19.

“I can’t tell you that 2017-18 will be the deficit year, but it’s becoming more and more likely as we look out ahead that 2017-18, maybe 2018-19, if we don’t get those type of increases, we know our expenses are going to go up, we’re going to certainly be facing it at some point,” Tobin said during the work session.

At the work session the board, along with Grossane, discussed the findings of the housing report that made five recommendations, labeled Options 1 through 5, for money saving measures.

Of the five recommendations, all suggested closing at least one of the district’s eight elementary schools. Grossane’s report said that closing one elementary school would save the district $725,000 annually.

Four of the five options included closing Branch Brook Elementary, which caused an uprising among district parents and started a Save Branch Brook movement that included petitions, Facebook pages, presentations to the school board and matching blue T-shirts.

Meredith Lombardi, a resident in the district, made a heartfelt plea to the board on Tuesday night.

“I was in sixth grade and my school district was redistricted,” Lombardi said. “I was ripped from my school. I was told that I was going to be going to a new one.”

Lombardi expressed a fear of putting her three children through the same experience that she had.

“If you allow one of our schools to close, the children affected will never be the same,” Lombardi said.

Lombardi was one of eight “Save Branch Brook” parents who stepped up to the podium to address the board Tuesday night. Katie Healy was another.

“Branch Brook is our most efficient and cost effective school,” Healy said. “Branch Brook is not the school to close. It is the wrong place and the wrong time. Closing Branch Brook will not solve our district’s problems, it will just add more,” Healy said.

At the time that the recommendations were made, it was unclear what lead Grossane to suggest closing Branch Brook as a course of action. Parents from the Save Branch Brook contingent conducted their own housing-committee-style research and concluded that Branch Brook was the elementary school least deserving of closure based on building occupancy, square foot per student, students per usable classroom and utility cost.

They also offered their own recommendation, Option 6, which suggested that based on their findings Smithtown Elementary was the school that should be closed.

It is now clear what led Grossane to suggest Branch Brook for closure, records showed. The number of elementary school classrooms that feed students to the district’s two high schools must be close.

Currently, the eight elementary schools send 116 classrooms worth of students to Smithtown West when they reach ninth grade and 114 to Smithtown East, according to Grossane.

If Branch Brook were closed and district boundaries were not redrawn, 114 elementary classes would still be fed to East, while 96 would be sent to West.

This is a discrepancy that Grossane is comfortable with. Closing Smithtown Elementary, for example, which was put on the table by the community’s Option 6, would result in 114 elementary classrooms for East and 84 for West.

Grossane said that there would be no choice but to redistrict if that was the option that the board selected.

Additionally, the district needs to select a school for closure that does not leave their potential elementary school capacity vulnerable to growing enrollment. Grossane’s report said that even if the board chose Option 5, which would close Branch Brook and Dogwood Elementary schools, the district would be able to handle roughly 800 additional elementary students on top of the approximately 3,700 elementary school students enrolled for 2015-16 across the eight schools.

Closing one or two elementary schools would obviously increase average class size, though Grossane called instances where any classes would reach a district implemented maximum of 28 students “outliers.”

“Every school has a grade level that runs almost to maximum,” Grossane said at the work session. “If we close a building and we operate with seven, those outliers would smooth out. They’d shift. There would still be an outlier occasionally in every building. I’m not going to tell you there isn’t going to be a class in fifth grade that doesn’t have a 28 at some point within the next six years after we close a building, because there definitely will be. But it’s usually one grade per building. Most times, the class averages even out across the district.”

Members of the school board responded to Grossane’s findings as well as the overwhelming public comments from the previous meetings.

“I have been doing a lot of housing committee work over my time on the board,” Theresa Knox, a trustee on the board of education said on the 19th. “I’ve been through this within my own neighborhood, as many of you know. My children were not affected by the closing of Nesconset, but all of the children on the end of my little dead-end block were. And I have to look at them everyday. And they’re doing great.”

Knox responded to parents concerned about which elementary school their kids would be sent to if closures were carried out. “It had better be, that all of our elementary buildings are fine, educational, welcoming, nurturing, caring places.”

Discussions about the sale and/or repurposing of the district’s administration headquarters on New York Avenue in Smithtown are ongoing as well.

Public comments are not permitted during public work sessions. More debate and eventually a decision are inevitable in the coming weeks.

A date has not yet been selected for a vote on the matter.

Some question why district’s proposed plan covers less

Northport High School. File photo

After a lengthy battle, Northport-East Northport school district’s security greeters have been offered health care benefits. But the fight may not be over.

Although the district has presented health insurance plans to the nine full-time greeters, some say the plans are expensive and don’t treat them the same as other district employees.

The duties of a greeter, also known as a security monitor, include monitoring who is coming and going from a school building, assisting in late arrivals and early releases and helping parents get forgotten items to the students, among other day-to-day tasks that may arise. The position was established about 10 years ago, according to the district supervisor of security, and the district employs one full-time greeter for each of their six elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school.

Under the plans, the district would pay 60 percent of the greeters’ health coverage, according to Diane Smith, the greeter who has led the charge for benefits.

Contracts on the district’s website indicate that it pays 75 percent of superintendent Robert Banzer’s coverage, 82 percent for administrators, 79 percent for teachers and 86 percent for security guards.

Diane Smith has been asking for health care benefits for her and her fellow employees for months. Photo from Smith
Diane Smith has been asking for health care benefits for her and her fellow employees for months. Photo from Smith

Smith said she is grateful the district granted greeters health care coverage —“I’m happy to get that, it’s fabulous to have any kind of a break,” Smith said in an email — but she wants treatment equal to fellow employees, specifically security guards.

When asked about the difference between greeters and security guards, the district said in a statement, “Security guards and security monitors are civil service appointments. Both positions require security certifications and the ongoing completion of security training.”

As is, the employee contribution for the greeters’ proposed insurance on a family plan “will cost us exactly every other entire paycheck,” she said. “How did they come up with that [number]?”

Smith’s salary is $20,000.

According to Smith, the greeters were offered more affordable plans, one of which would have covered 75 percent of health care costs, but they wouldn’t have provided coverage for families. She said in addition to working as a greeter full time, she has been working a second job part time to pay for private health insurance for herself and her two kids.

“Each year the district examines its policies in an effort to further benefit our valued employees,” Banzer said in a statement through the district’s public relations firm, Syntax. “Through prudent budgeting and research with our providers, we are pleased to offer multiple health care coverage options to our greeters. Although the district has not provided this coverage in the past, as it is not required, we felt it was an important step to make this available to them.”

Despite her criticism, Smith expressed gratitude.

“It’s still really good,” she said in a phone interview Monday. “I would not turn it down. It would help my income for sure.”

Smith had a meeting with a district insurance specialist on Wednesday to get some more questions answered and ultimately decide on a plan.

According to her, the greeters must sign up by Feb. 1 to begin getting coverage.

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The New York State Capitol building in Albany. File photo

For New York schools, cutting the Gap Elimination Adjustment could be an addition by subtraction.

The adjustment, a deduction taken out of each New York school district’s state aid, was enacted several years ago to help the state government close a budget deficit. While the amount deducted has decreased in recent years and there have been efforts to completely restore the funding, state Sen. John Flanagan (R-East Northport) has recently sponsored legislation that would completely eliminate the system this year, giving more financial help to public schools struggling to make ends meet.

The bill passed in the Senate and must make its way through the Assembly before heading to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D). And as schools across the state wait for the final vote, administrators applauded Flanagan’s efforts in helping them restore their funding.

“Over the past several years our district has been proactive in imploring our elected officials to restore the funds lost under the Gap Elimination Adjustment,” said Cheryl Pedisich, superintendent of schools for the Three Village Central School District. “As we enter our latest budget preparations, we are pleased at the news that this effort has taken an important step forward.”

Over in Northport, Superintendent Robert Banzer said restoring aid would “support critical instructional programming and operational budgets that districts rely on to provide a sound environment for our educational community.”

According to Banzer, aid cuts add to pressure on school budgets.

“Marginal tax caps, decreases in revenues and increases in state mandates leave districts with little room to navigate yearly budgets, and the elimination of the GEA would help alleviate the impact of some of these restraints.”

Port Jefferson Assistant Superintendent for Business Sean Leister was not as optimistic that the Gap Elimination Adjustment would be removed.

Sen. John Flanagan file photo
Sen. John Flanagan file photo

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said during a budget presentation at a school board meeting last week.

Leister is estimating a 6 percent increase in state aid next year, a number he called “conservative,” but if the adjustment is eliminated and Port Jefferson receives more state aid than it allots for in the budget, he said school officials would decide together how to spend it.

Comsewogue’s assistant superintendent for business, Susan Casali, said her school district has lost out on almost $23 million in state aid since the first year of the adjustment. In the next school year, Comsewogue schools could lose out on another $1.3 million if the Gap Elimination Adjustment remains. But that could create a problem for the district, which is currently crafting its 2016-17 budget.

“To maintain our financial position and programs, we need to have the full [deduction] restored,” she said in an email this week.

Flanagan said that eliminating the school funding cuts was the Senate’s top priority in education this session. There are currently about $434 million in GEA cuts still in place for schools in 2016-17 but if the bill becomes law, Flanagan said, his legislation would permanently abolish such education budget reductions.

“The Senate’s top education funding priority this year will be the complete elimination of the GEA,” Flanagan said. “Since 2011, the Senate Republicans have worked to restore $3 billion in funding that was lost to schools because of the GEA and we will not pass any budget that does not fully eliminate it this year. The GEA has been hurting schools and students for way too long and it is past time that we end it once and for all.”

Former Gov. David Paterson (D) imposed the GEA in 2010 despite widespread opposition from Republicans. Since it was approved, Flanagan said he and his Republican colleagues have been leading the charge to abolish the GEA and deliver funding increases to help mitigate its impacts on education. Over the past five years, he said, the GEA cuts have been reduced by roughly 85 percent, to $434 million in the 2015-16 budget.

State Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) co-sponsored the legislation alongside Flanagan. In a statement, he said the move was long overdue.

“The elimination of the GEA has been a top priority of mine since it was imposed,” LaValle said. “It has hurt our students and increased costs for taxpayers. The bill we passed completely abolishes the GEA this year and ends its devastating impact on state funding to public schools.”

The legislation has already gained support on the other side of the state Legislature, with Assemblyman Mike Fitzpatrick (R-St. James) saying he was in favor of the GEA elimination and calling on the governor to return all the funds taken from schools since it was imposed.

“It’s simple: The state has an obligation to fully fund our school districts. Some members of the legislature made the shortsighted decision to allow the governor to borrow against the future of our children to close a budget gap created by rampant, uncontrolled spending,” Fitzpatrick said. “It was wrong then and must be resolved once and for all.”

Victoria Espinoza, Elana Glowatz and Alex Petroski contributed reporting.

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Cheryl Pedisich speaks at the podium after receiving the first-ever Administrator of the Year award from the New York State School Counselor Association. Photo by Andrea Moore Paldy

Three Village and other districts recently received the results of an audit conducted by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli of the 2014-15 finances relating to the district’s fuel inventory management.

The comprehensive, six-month review of the district’s 2014-15 finances found that the fuel inventory was “overstated by 452 gallons of gasoline and 297 gallons of diesel fuel, with a total value of $1,725.” 

That was a finding after a review of documents related to the district’s financial policies and procedures, including cash disbursements, payroll, fund balance and reserve management, cash flow to vendors, budget revenues and expenditures, among others.

Three Village board’s Audit Committee Chair Jonathan Kornreich said the state audit’s report accounts for nine-millionth of the district’s $188 million budget and amounts to about 2 gallons of gas per week.   

Assistant Superintendent for Business Services Jeff Carlson, who said he was “pretty happy” with the audit, added that the district has already addressed the comptroller’s recommendations.

The comptroller recommends that the board write procedures for reconciliation of fuel, that the inventory be reconciled more frequently and that odometer readings on trucks be entered before fuel is dispensed. Additionally, the state suggests that Three Village “address any physical security concerns of the fueling station,” such as repositioning security cameras. 

Changing Ward Melville?
In other news from Wednesday’s meeting, board trustee Jeff Kerman raised an uncomfortable issue involving a local legend. Kerman said he wants the board to consider having the district’s attorneys look into whether it is feasible to change the name of Ward Melville High school.

“I’m a little concerned about the name of our high school being named after an anti-Semite and named after a racist person,” Kerman told the board.

He said that Melville’s refusal to let Jews rent shops in the village or sell houses to blacks and Jews is not acceptable in today’s age.

This was the first time the topic has been broached. There were no public comments or discussion from the board.

Three Village superintendent collects major honor
Three Village teachers, administrators and staff gathered at the North Country Administration building last Wednesday to honor Superintendent Cheryl Pedisich.

Pedisich is the recipient of the first-ever Administrator of the Year award from the New York State School Counselor Association.

“We’ve realized how fortunate we are to have a truly outstanding educational leader,” School Board President Bill Connors said.

“It really is wonderful when an outside group comes and also affirms our own view of the superintendent and affirms the outstanding leadership that she’s provided.”

Pedisich, who had been nominated by Linda Bergson, coordinating guidance chairperson for the district, said she was honored to receive the award from an organization that represented her “origins as an educator.”   

The superintendent’s 32-year career in Three Village began at Ward Melville High School as a guidance counselor. That is, in fact, how she and Bergson first met — Bergson’s son was one of the students Pedisich counseled.   

Bergson read her nominating letter at Wednesday’s school board meeting. In it, she described Pedisich’s leadership as collaborative and respectful.  The school superintendent is a wonderful listener, she said.

“And if she asks you to do something, she will always offer to help you accomplish it,” Bergson said.

Besides being detail-oriented and taking a “holistic” approach to problem-solving, “her work product is impeccable,” Bergson’s letter said.

Pedisich was selected from administrators statewide by a five-member committee, said NYSSCA President Barbara Donnellan, who attended the meeting with Executive Director Robert Rotunda to present the award to the Three Village superintendent.   

She is a leader “who provides outstanding support to school counselors,” Donnellan said.

Pedisich’s counseling background is apparent in the way she works with students, parents, teachers and staff, Bergson said. She is able to find the right words to handle a situation and never makes anyone feel as though they’re taking up too much time, she added. Most impressive, though, is how Pedisich, who has been superintendent since 2012, acknowledges what people do and validates and praises their efforts, she said.

“It’s funny to watch her walk down the hall when she’s in the high school for a meeting, because she says hello to everyone by name — teachers, administrators, custodians, secretaries, security — she doesn’t just say hello, but she asks them questions that show that she knows them personally,” Bergson said.

Visibly touched, Pedisich thanked the “dedicated, skilled and talented” district staff, Three Village parents who are “invested in our children” and the school board, which she said “respects and values and demonstrates positive regard for all of its constituency.”

“I would not be in this position or the educator I am if it wasn’t for the people with whom I have worked,” she said.   

“I am incredibly indebted to all of you… This will definitely be one of the most special and indelible moments of my career.”

This version corrects the number of years Cheryl Pedisich has worked in the Three Village school district.