Note to readers: The Livingston Manor School Board meetings have been rescheduled for the fourth Monday of each month, often too late to be published in a timely manner in the print edition of the paper. Manor Ink’s monthly reports will thus appear regularly here online, and in the print paper whenever possible. This report is incomplete and will be updated once additional information on the meeting is forthcoming.
New district budget vote scheduled for May
School Board Meeting of Apr. 1
By Marge Feuerstein | Manor Ink Mentor
Public Comment: A fairly large group of residents attended this first presentation of the proposed budget of the newly-formed joint school districts now to be called the Rockland Central School District. A number of residents asked whether certain topics would be covered. New for this budget meeting was the fact that the board members had mikes available.
Superintendent’s Report, Budget Presentation: Superintendent John Evans and Business Manager Jeff Froehlich had a series of charts and tables to illustrate the proposed budget. For this first year, since there are still so many contractual unknowns, the budget is simply a combined figure of the two previous separate districts, totaling $32 million. The proposed budget maintains the operation of both buildings, and has no cuts to personnel for the coming school year. It is likely there will be some shrinkage due to attrition. Since a new district has been created, every contract with personnel, contractors and suppliers must be renegotiated. After the first year, some redundancy may become evident and adjustments can be made.
Some board members seemed most concerned with the question of the state’s tax cap. This matter and the need to establish a new reserve fund required some clarification, and Evans suggested an additional meeting in a week when he would have those clarifications. The meeting was set for Wednesday, Apr. 9, at 6:30 p.m. in Roscoe. The superintendent reiterated that a budget must be adopted by Apr. 22 in order for it to be voted on in May.
Policy Manual: Both Livingston Manor and Roscoe have staff policy manuals, but because they are now a single district, a new manual must be produced and adopted. The Roscoe manual is massive compared to the Manor’s, but many items are already law and thus should not be duplicated. The board members were all given copies of both policy manuals and were instructed to take them home and review them. The board decided to start by accepting the policies required by state law, and will then adopt others that seem necessary but are not redundant. One change the state is now requiring is the addition of a student member to the board. How that student will be chosen will be determined by the board.
Action Items: The following items were voted on and unanimously approved.
Minutes of the March meetings.
The following policies: #1150 Code of Ethics, #1200 Hallway of Livingston Manor Building, #1300 Procedure for Board Meetings, #1400 Procedure for Approval of Policies.
Establish a Capital Reserve Fund of a maximum of $30 million over 15 years, to be put on the budget ballot.
Board Discussion of Live Screening: There are two different issues. Should board meetings be available to the public via Zoom, and should board members be able to attend meetings and vote remotely? These matters will also be discussed again at the next meetings.
Executive Session: The board then went into executive session to discuss personnel matters.
Details of all the budget proposals and all monetary amounts can be found at lmcs.k12.ny.us under the minutes of Apr. 1 (click the drop-down for Rockland). For additional clarification, call the school clerk at 845-439-4400 Ext.1.