EDITORIAL: With Layoffs Looming, Schools Should Follow BOCES’ Lead

2-19-10

If news is the unusual, then word that 10 teachers and staff members at Cooperstown Central School had been advised they might be laid off – an unprecedented step – was big news.
Worse, however, is that this – if it goes through; staff was advised as a courtesy, in the event the school board is forced by budget realities to follow through – is probably just the beginning.
The Cooperstown district is facing a $600,000 reduction in state aid, as reflected in Governor Paterson’s proposed budget.  Oneonta City Schools are facing a $1.6 million reduction; schools in the Otsego-Northern Catskills BOCES, $6 million.
Oneonta School Superintendent Mike Shea observed that, with personnel making up 70 percent of local education budgets, there’s no where else to go faced with reductions of that magnitude.

This is regrettable for many reasons.
• One, many of the teachers and employees who would be ousted are our friends and neighbors.
• Two, it’s easier to tear down a program than rebuild it.  If French, for instance, were allowed to lapse at Cooperstown, would it ever be brought back?
• Three, the prospective cuts would be good jobs with good benefits that contribute positively to the local economy.  The total is $6 million that won’t be spent locally, plus layoff and unemployment costs.

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State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, former chair of the state Senate Education Committee, points out that, if state aid can’t be restored and school budgets aren’t reduced, the property-tax payer takes the hit.
“Plan for the worst, expect the worst,” he advised, “and hope that we in the legislature will do better.”
Much depends on what happens in Washington, D.C., he said:  If Congress passes a jobs bill, some teaching jobs may be saved; if Congress passes the right health bill, New York State’s costs will be reduced and some of that money can go to education.
Perhaps mandates – local contributions to teacher pension funds, for instance – can be lowered or delayed.
“There’s a lot of will to restore school cuts,” he said, “but will there be the wallet?”
At best, he predicted, school aid will remain the same as last year, which was the same as the year before.  Meanwhile, costs rise.

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While this constitutes a crisis, longterm trends – dropping enrollments, in particular – have suggested for some time that something’s got to give.
BOCES Superintendent Nick Savin has been making the rounds in recent months, facilitating discussions of how services might be shared.
These fall into three areas, according to Jennifer Bolton-Carls, the assistant BOCES superintendent:
• One, student programs.  “Itinerant teachers,” in particular, are increasingly popular.  A small district may not need a full-time speech therapist, for instance, but can share such an individual with two similar-sized districts.
• Two, structural services.  While most districts need a tech person these days, sub-specialities – a desktop-support specialist or network specialist, for instance – can be shared.
• Three, management services.  Laurens and Morris, for instance, are sharing a business manager, who can be a big-ticket item.  There’s a workers’ comp consortium in BOCES.  The system also provides recruitment services.
BOCES services, Bolton-Carls explained, all qualify for another level of state aid, thus ensuring more funds will flow from Albany.

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Less is not more.  It can’t be.
Part of the longterm answer is turning around the Upstate economy, bringing in new business and new people, increasing incomes and enrollments.
Reducing mandates is a buzz term, but Seward’s right:  The out-of-date Wicks Law, for instance, is causing such things at $900 doors.  It should go.
Short, short term, BOCES’ problem-solving approaches should be embraced.  Schools provide jobs, but are not jobs programs, per se. 
Delivering the best education possible under whatever the constraints is Job One, as always. 
Only more so.