By Abi Wood

GALWAY–On March 29 the Board of Education met for a meeting and work session. The overall atmosphere of this meeting was more positive then previous meetings, but the budget is still looking dismal.

Mrs. LaBelle said that they were now “scrutinizing every line, every item [of the budget].” She said that by doing this they found further places to cut spending that didn’t involve cutting any opportunities for students. They have allocated some salaries to federal funds. There were significant changes in the BOCES budget for next year that allowed for significant savings. The health care for employees was also investigated. She said that she had discovered that we can wait to purchase buses until we can receive aid which would help offset the payments, and this could postponed until the 2013/2014 school year.

She said that after the community chat last week it appeared to her and the board that the community was mostly concerned with the academic cuts occurring with that first presentation of the Core and Core Plus budget. So, with the savings made by their discoveries, they are looking at keeping Chemistry, Physics, PLTW (Project Lead the Way – a technology program), Pre-Calculus, Statistics and 0.5 music teachers in the core budget.

Merely an hour and a half prior to this meeting the State Aid was announced officially from Albany. We will receive $38,000 additionally which was not factored into the changes they have just outlined. LaBelle commented that this was “favorable but not fantastic”. She advised the Board that the earlier that an official budget could be produced, the better so that the community has the best understanding on the budget prior to voting. April 22 is the latest that the finalized budget can be released. There is a meeting April 5 and another scheduled April 19, however there is the possibility of an extra meeting that could be held over Spring Break. She finally stated that this is “certainly much better than last week.”

The Distance Learning opportunities next year are yet to be established, however there is a preliminary meeting on March 30 and the information should be available about a week after that, but that this is a “big piece” of their plans. Both Mr. Sutton and LaBelle stated that these are “drastic changes.”

Currently the Board is presuming that the current bus system will still be in place next year while they plan the budget, however they had asked the Transportation Stakeholders Council for information on eliminating one bus-run in the afternoon. This would save about $45,934 in salaries according to Vicki Weaver. She also commented that asking for this, which would eliminate hours for the bus drivers, and a pay freeze would be too much to ask.

Joan Slagle asked why we are losing so many bus drivers and Weaver commented that there is no job security, “we’re scared”. The Stakeholder Council is fighting for the jobs of the drivers, and trying to maintain 4 hours a day so that benefits are still available.

Mrs. Miller, a parent of a current senior at Galway, said that everyone knew that she was a sports person, but that she “would never accept adding sports [back into the budget] over Chemistry and Physics” which seemed to be the opinion of many people both at this meeting and the community chat.

For more information about the proposed budgets please look at

The District’s Information http://www.galwaycsd.org/news.cfm?story=94745&school=0

EMC’s Coverage of the Community Chat https://eaglesmediacenter.com/?p=6959

or The Daily Gazette’s Article http://www.galwaycsd.org/files/news/galway%20say%20budget%20likely%20to%20include%20deep%20cuts.pdf