My Questions for the 2010-2011 New Rochelle School District Budget Cycle

Last year, there were three people who played fast and loose with the truth when it came time to discuss the school budget: Richard Organisciak, John Quinn, Cindy Babcock-Deutsch. There was one suspect statement by David Lacher but I am not willing to go so far as lump him in with the three serial liars mentioned above.

Question 1: What is the full, true cost of the Full Day Kindergarten Program in 2010-11

John Quinn said New York State would pick up the full cost of the “transition” to Full Day Kindergarten, he joked how the district might even “make money” by adding Full Day Kindergarten, only several meetings later letting slip that 13 teachers were being “reassigned” as Kindergarten teachers. At a cost of $80,000 per year, this cost alone would total more than $1 million yet Quinn continued to present Full Day K as being “free” or “fully reimbursable”. So we can better evaluate such “free” programs in the future, I want Mr. Quinn to break out a full accounting of the true cost of the Full Day K program in 2010-11 so we can all see just how “free” this “free program” has become in just one short year. It may be too late to do anything about Full Day K but it might provide a useful frame of reference for other such programs like Mandarin CILA which will be part of the upcoming budget.

Question 2: What is the economic basis for the projected decline in the assessed value of property assumed in the 2010-11 budget?

John Quinn and Richard Organisciak defended the 2009-10 budget based on a wildly optimistic “decline in assessables” of -1.41 on the grounds that the information was provided to them by New Rochelle Tax Assessor Louis Perone. Meanwhile his boss, New Rochelle Finance Commissioner Howard Ratner told Talk of the Sound that his office was using a decline of -3.0 and even THAT was optimistic. Challenged repeatedly on assuming a decline equal to that used the previous year, despite the collapse of the financial markets, a sell-off in the housing market and a massive decline in payrolls, Quinn and Organisciak eventually changed their assumed rate of decline to -1.76 claiming, falsely, that the City had changed their assumption to -1.50 and they had added -0.26 to be conservative. The School District budget is far larger than the City budget and with all the millions spent on consultants and accountants and lawyers, it ought to be able to afford paying for its own economic forecasting to project a realistic level of decline in the assessed value of property in New Rochelle.

Question 3: Is there a law which precludes members of the school board answering truthfully and fully questions from residents on the status of union negotiations?

Cindy Babcock-Deutsch lied repeatedly in an effort to confound efforts by residents to determine whether the projected level of salaries contained in the 2009-10 budget were reasonable. In the final budget session, Quinn admitted that the budget data for union members was not projected for 2009-10 but the actual numbers for the then-current year of 2008-09. Babcock-Deutsch invoked the Taylor Law as the reason why the board was supposedly not allowed to tell residents whether there new contract contained raises, job cuts, or givebacks on benefits or pensions or even whether an agreement-in-principal had been reached. As Warren Gross makes clear in his brief on The Taylor Law, there is nothing in the law that prevents school board members from discussing ongoing negotiations or whether an agreement-in-principal has been reached. Babcock-Deutsch, challenged on her inaccurate claims about the Taylor Law, continued to insist there was a law which said the board could not talk about ongoing negotiations. Challenged on that claim, she said she would “seek counsel” before the next meeting but never provided any further explanation at the next meeting. As readers will recall, the day after the budget vote, the head of the union sent out an email containing the terms of the agreement negotiated with the school district asking the to approve the deal. In June, Babcock-Deutsch responded in writing to our request that she identify the law she claimed precluded the board from discussing ongoing negotiations. In an act of legal perversion, Cindy Babcock-Deutsch cited the New York State Open Meeting Act and the New York State Freedom of Information Act as the legal basis for failing to been open or freely provide information to the public.

Question 4: How much money is sloshing around in hidden pockets of the school budget or as “undesignated” funds that can later be used to reduce the impact of the erroneous forecasts contained in the 2009-10 budget?

John Quinn was quite smug in providing assurances about the projected tax increases that would be needed to fund last year’s $229mm budget. His projections turned out to be highly inaccurate. He failed to account for millions in increased pension contributions, the “unexpected” increase in tax certioraris, and decreases or holds place on New York State aid. He was smug because he had millions squirreled away in the district budget which he “designated” as need to cover the millions in “unforeseen” shortfalls in revenue. That was a one-trick pony because, according to the recent audit report, the current level of undesignated funds in the district’s reserve fund has dropped to $5mm less than half the maximum allowable amount. Unless cuts are made in the 2010-11 budget, the district will be running a negative balance and will have to “bond” to make up the difference.

Questions 5: Will the board commit to a more transparent negotiation process in the upcoming round of negotiations?

Lacher is on the list because he said if the terms of the union contract were known before the budget vote they would be made public. Challenged on this point when the union announced their deal to their members the day after the vote, Lacher asserted that until the union voted the deal was not “final” and so the information could not be released. This is a legalistic argument that ignores the context in which he made the claim; residents wanted to know whether their would be layoffs, givebacks or pay reductions in the deal and clearly the district knew that the answer was “no” to all three prior to the vote.

Question 6: Will the board agree to a new policy to conclude union negotiations at least 45 days prior to that year’s budget vote so the actual numbers can be voted upon by residents?

Question 7: Is there any legal reason why the school board elections and budget votes could not be held at the same time as City elections in November?

Question 8: Is there any legal reason why the school district fiscal calendar cannot be brought into sync with the City’s fiscal calendar?

I will add more as they come to me and would be happy for suggestions in the comments section below.

Question 9: Will the District release information on the reports the board was promised last summer on the number of “wrongly enrolled” students blocked/removed from the District over failing to meet Residency Requirements?