By: Melissa MacDonald

Following the rally out on the lawn, all filed into the elementary gym to hear the presentation of the proposed budget for the 2011-2012 school year. Mrs. Labelle listed all of the various cuts and restorations in her PowerPoint, with the Board assembled in the front.  Overall, things seemed pretty grim through the financial jargon and confusing terms (cuts were made by 1.0 or .4 of a position, not meaning that people were getting cut off at the knee, but that someone would be bumped down to part time). A glimmer of hope was shown as a few things were restored due to the sudden outpouring of support, but cuts were still being made.

Another buzzword of the night was the financial balance, the school’s nest egg that was being tapped; the balance being formed from leftover unspent money that is saved in one sum from year to year. The problem with tapping into it, though, is that if we spend it all at once to try and restore programs, it will be gone the next year and we’d only be delaying the inevitable. The financial balance is being used to help offset the cuts, but only in small amounts.

After the presentation, the floor was open to comments and question from the public, where things became very heated. Among the speeches made, many citizens had excellent ideas and suggestions, and a passionate Mr. U made an animated speech about the overall lack of confidence in the Board’s leadership in terms of showing where the money is going. Robert Coolidge also commented on the teacher cuts from the point of a student, remarking that teachers are not only teachers, but counselors and close friends that would be sorely missed.

The issue of busing consolidation was a hot button issue, with many lifelong drivers bringing up safety issues with trying to cram so many kids (of all shapes and sizes) on one run (“Three bums to thirty inches,” as Mrs. Weaver put it). Mrs. Weaver cited her experiments with high school and middle schoolers wherein the three-to-a-seat rule was tested and found that many could not fit without blocking the aisle and the back window; a requirement by law.

The air of tension left many feeling as though the Board coldly rejected their statements; I ask of those who think that way to consider things from the Board’s position. They are trying to keep as much of the same with less money coming from the state while trying not to raise taxes in an already economically tight time. The school can’t go running to the state to ask for more to supplement things.

(Disclaimer: The following paragraphs are the opinion of the author, based on the concerns she heard that night.) They aren’t the sole party to blame here; blame Albany for cutting state aid, blame your parents for not wanting to pay higher taxes to save everything, blame the GTA for not taking a pay freeze to try and save fellow teachers’ jobs (they get a 5% raise every year and I overheard one parent saying they only get 25 cents a year. “They just take and take and never give anything up,” as one older citizen put it. Then again, there’s no guarantee from the Board that the money saved would go toward teacher salaries).

The questions left as comments or were unanswered because nothing could be said to placate the asker; there was no nice way to answer those questions, if they could even be answered to begin with. It’s a tad frustrating when this issue originated back in November and it’s taken till April for people to care; nobody opposed the Board members back when they ran for reelection in November, and now everyone wants to kick them out all of a sudden.

Above all, I ask you to put yourself in their place and have some empathy for the stressful situation into which they’ve been thrust. Go out and educate yourselves about the situation.

Here are some comments from people who attended the rally and/or Board meeting:

Vanessa Strevy: “I’m here to support business, art, science and music.”

Bridget Garney: “No cuts at all! Have to have music, art, and business. They’ll be left with nothing.”

Lasse Rothhardt: “(Save) drama, arts, everything! Especially drama!”

Mrs. Colby (school nurse): “(Don’t cut) the nurse! Arts, music and sports! One nurse can’t do eleven hundred kids!”

Mary Goldstein: “I’d like to see them use the reserve budget and save jobs.” (Ed. Note: It’s called the Fund Balance which is the school’s “nest egg” made up of leftover funds compiled after the end of each year. This year, the fund balance is around 1 million, but once it’s gone, it’s gone.) 

Mrs. Weaver: “3 bums to 30 inches…60 kids, 42 stops, lots of safety issues with this.”

Cody Alvord: “Save music and arts, and babies! They are our future.”

Mr. Sutton (Board President): “It’s very difficult to preserve what we’ve been doing because of the loss of state aid…our responsibilty is to the taxpayers, but we have to balance things…”

Mr. Kline: “Without a good education program, you have no students. No students, no school.  No school, no community.”

Mrs. Labelle (Superintendent): “I think it’s great that the kids are out here, I support that! I’m very impressed! They’re doing their best under a really serious topic.”

Here’s a link to the Galway web page for an article on the Board meeting April 7.  It includes Mrs. Labelle’s PowerPoint presentation that outlines the cuts and provides an overview of the budget proposal for the 2011-2012 school year.

http://www.galwaycsd.org/news.cfm?story=73257&school=0

Below is a link to the Galway web page for the results from the recent online survey regarding budget concerns.

http://www.galwaycsd.org/news.cfm?story=73206&school=0

Next week, April 14, the Board will present the final budget. The public will vote on this budget on Tuesday, May 17. What are your thoughts on the budget? Leave a comment below…