I thought only the Frontier School Board was filled with idiots but I was wrong. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out debits and credits. Money in versus money out is a basic function of financial accounting. On top of this big poop pile is the fact that the teachers in this district teach math. Perhaps they should have mandatory enrollment for the elected school board members to prevent future million dollar deficits.
This year there will be one board seat up for grabs. Eileen Rucker is up for re-election and I suggest that someone run against her. I don’t know Eileen but I do know she is part of this problem. We need people on our school boards who can and will do more with less. Apparently the Hamburg School Board wants to ignore their financial situation and just continue with business as usual. They must make a choice, lower spending or raise taxes. Their is no middle ground with this large a deficit.
Time for a change folks, start thinking about it.
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/southernsuburbs/story/177720.html
Hamburg school officials issue assurances on $1.8 million deficit
Say the gap won’t affect educational programs this school year
By Barbara O’Brien NEWS STAFF REPORTER
An aversion to raising taxes, coupled with an eagerness to tap reserves when revenues came up short, has left the Hamburg Central School District short – by $1.8 million.
Now the School Board must struggle to cover the shortfall.”It will not really affect the eduction of our students this year at all,” said Edwin J. Osborne, board president.But what steps the district will take remains unknown. He said the School Board will not devise a plan until Mark Crawford takes over Oct. 15 as superintendent.
Crawford will succeed Peter Roswell who announced in March he would retire Sept. 1.
Whatever measures are taken, the board will involve the community through forums and listen to its ambassadors – business and community members who consult in the budget process, Osborne said.
District officials announced the deficit in the current budget Tuesday, blaming the gap on revenues that did not live up to projections.
“We overestimated sales tax and state aid,” Osborne said.
The district was about $60,000 in the red at the end of the 2005-06 year. The reserves, which had been as high as $5 million, had been depleted over several years to reduce the tax rate, officials said.
The shortfall grew when an expected increase in state aid failed to materialize. The last budget year ended with the $1.8 million deficit, which an external audit by Lumdsden & McCormick has confirmed. The state comptroller’s office also launched an audit of the district last month, as part of its program to audit every school district in the state by 2010.
“The thing that hurt the district, and I’ve cautioned the board it could be an ongoing thing, was the state aid not coming in to help the district,” Roswell said.
Before this year, state aid, the district’s largest revenue source, had gone up less than one-half of 1 percent for the previous four years, he said.
“This was a well-intentioned attempt to keep costs low in terms of property tax levy. But as we have have learned from other examples, you pay now or you pay later,” said Donald A. Ogilvie, superintendent of the Erie 1 Board or Educational Services.
Osborne said the district had to borrow money the last two summers to pay bills until it received tax payments in October.
As associate superintendent, Osborne had handled business matters for the district until he retired in 2001. He was elected to the board three years ago.
But, he said, “The role of being associate superintendent and a board member is slightly different.”
He said the board relied on the information provided by the business office.
“We probably didn’t always ask enough questions or the right questions,” he said.
“For several years the district has used appropriated fund balance to artificially lower the property tax levy,” said Ogilvie, who was the district’s superintendent from 1989 until he became the BOCES superintendent in 1997. “That is not an unusual practice in school districts. In many instances, it’s viewed as a return of taxpayer money that is not needed.”
“It’s not a high-spending school district,” Roswell said. “I think everyone now realizes, it’s on the revenue side.”
Over the last 10 years, Hamburg’s spending and tax levy have increased about 28 percent or an average of less than 3 percent a year.
“No one wants their taxes raised, but raising taxes is not necessarily the wrong thing to do. What you have to do is justify the expense,” Ogilvie said.
