Newfield school district to hold budget revote

Newfield voters will weigh in on a revised budget at a revote on June 18 between noon and 9 p.m. 

The Newfield Central School District (NCSD) Board of Education decided not to put another article that failed, regarding the  purchase of several electric buses, up for revote this year. 

At a special meeting held May 20, the NCSD approved a new budget with a lower tax levy, cutting one teaching position in order to bring the levy increase down from 3.5% to 2.5%.

The district’s original proposed budget of $25,482,411, with a proposed tax levy of $7,432,413, failed in a May 21 town vote. Perry Gorgon, NCSD business administrator, gave a presentation regarding a revised budget at last week’s special meeting of the board.

Gorgon said a reduction of $71,811 would lower the levy increase by one percentage point and gave several options for how the board could cut that amount.

After much discussion, board members decided to cut one technology education teaching position.

The eliminated teaching position and class are essentially what most people would think of as a traditional shop class, said Eric Hartz, NCSD superintendent. 

The position is currently held by a certified special education teacher who is filling in as the teacher of the shop class even though he is not certified in that area, Hartz explained May 31. “We were unable to successfully fill that spot for three years with a certified person,” Hartz said. “We had a person doing the class for us, but he is also a special education certified teacher for us.”

The district happened to have an opening for a special education teacher, and the shop instructor will step into that role.

With $3,800 in supplies also cut from the budget with the shop/technology class, the district was able to save about $68,000. An additional $4,500 was taken from the budget in legal expenses and other administrative areas.

Gorgon put the salaries of the district in perspective with a chart that compared Newfield’s average starting salary for a new teacher with no experience with that of 13 other districts in the region. Newfield’s starting salary was lower than 11 of those districts, paying its teachers a starting salary of $44,500. Only Moravia pays less, with an average starting salary of $41,300.

Feedback from the public indicated that Newfield’s staffing appears “admin heavy,” and Gorgon showed that there were eight administrators during the 2019-20 school year; that number decreased to six for the next three years before increasing to seven in the current school year.

The total combined salary for administrators was $871,906 in 2019-20. That fell to $614,200 the next year and had climbed back up to $764,060 in the 2023-24 budget.

In a comparison that Gorgon compiled of the percentage of the total budget that area school districts spend on their administrator’s salaries, Newfield falls just below average at 10.8%. Lansing Central School District spends less at 9.98%, and Groton Central School District spends more at 11.87%.

The one category of employee that has increased its numbers is teacher assistants. In 2019-20 there was one, and that number has steadily risen over the last few years to the current six.

The complete slide show of Gorgon’s presentation can be found at https://shorturl.at/vz5J6.

“During the special meeting when the decision was made to cut the technology teaching position, the superintendent expressed his future ideas for the tech rooms and equipment to possibly be leased by BOCES for their CTE tech students’ use, which would mean revenue to the district and still have some Newfield student access if in the program, or, creating an afterschool program for the community and/or students to use the space with funding and partnerships with outside agencies,” said Christina Ward, NCSD Board of Education president.

“Both of these ideas are at this point just hopes that would require outside partnership and time to create,” she added. “I am optimistic that this proposed change in the use of NCSD’s tech department space will be a step in the direction toward sustainable programming for our low-income, high-needs, rural district. The current and long-standing NYS public school funding system has been failing low-income districts like ours for decades. We see a change in this system as inevitable and are predicting reform to be in an educational system that relies on regionally shared resources.”

 If there is one silver lining to the budget’s failing, Ward said, it is that the district had a higher than average voter turnout and received more public feedback than it usually does.

The district revote will take place in the gymnasium of Newfield Elementary School, located at 247 Main St.

Qualified voters of the district may obtain applications for an absentee ballot or early vote by mail ballot from the office of the clerk of the district. Completed applications must be received by the clerk of the district no later than 4 p.m. on June 17 and must be received no later than 4 p.m. on June 11 if the absentee ballot or early vote by mail is to be mailed to the voter.

In Brief

Summer reading program registration events will take place Tuesday, June 11 through Thursday, June 13 from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Visit the library to register for the free summer reading program! Pick up a welcome kit, meet the staff and adopt a reading buddy! Can’t make those dates? Stop in any time after June 11 or send the library an email at newfieldlibrary@gmail.com.

The library has seven weeks of fun planned for the whole family, including puppet shows, musical and theater performances, animals and lots of chances to win prizes.