To the Editor:

Now that the New York State budget is settled and the school aid runs finalized, it is time to turn our attention toward how we, the members of the Canton School District, must come together to bring financial stability to the CCSD budget for this year and the immediate future.

First, the school district and the unions must agree to have their contracts and agreements settled by April 16, the date necessary to have the agreed-upon contract language and details made available to the voters of the school district as part of the 2012/13 school- year budget vote. For not only do the compensation and benefits comprise over 70 percent of the annual budget, they are also the primary drivers of year-to-year budget increases.

We cannot have a meaningful dialogue on what we can afford when we do not know what is being negotiated for the largest, most expensive, and fastest growing parts of the budget.

Next, major compensatory and benefit concessions are necessary to help close the 2012/13 school- year budget gap and to stop the agonizing budgetary processes that we have lived through these past four years. To begin, year-to-year “step” increases for teachers and administrators must be abolished.

These pay-to-show-up negotiated arrangements are incongruent with the Race-to-the-Top initiative and the implementation of the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR).

Additionally, CCSD employees need to have a salary freeze for the next five years or until such time that the APPR is fully implemented for teachers and principals, and until such time that performance-based salary incentives are developed for all administrators and teachers. This move alone will equate to an immediate 2.7 percent savings for the upcoming 2012/13 school year.

This along with other identified savings in Part 2 of the Instructional Budget will yield a$560,000 savings from the 2011/12 SY budget. Together, these will allow the teachers, unions, and administrators the time to develop a pay-raise agreement tied to substantial measures of teacher and principal performance.

CCSD has already identified $500,000 in savings for the 2012/13 school-year budget via attrition. Add to this the instructional savings noted above and there are over $1 million that can be diverted.

Related to this, because the district would keep CCSD salaries at the 2012/12 levels, demand the same treatment for all BOCES-related salaries. This may not be possible, but as every BOCES budget line, save one, in the CCSD 12/13 school year budget is larger compared to the 11/12 budget, it should be asked for.

Third, relative to healthcare and retirement benefits, the district should copy the framework recently adopted by New York State’s two biggest unions (PEF and CSEA), which is also being adopted by all other statewide unions (such as NYSCOBA and PBA) and being mandated for non-union employees.

The framework has those making less than $40,000.00 per year contribute 12% towards the cost of providing health care coverage for an individual and 27% for a dependent coverage. For those staff making more than $40,000.00, the contribution rates would be 16 percent for an individual and 31 percent for a family.

Likewise, it is time and fiscally necessary to ask retirees to contribute toward their healthcare costs. Retiree and employee healthcare costs have skyrocketed, and we cannot afford to cover these costs with zero contribution from the employees during their careers or in their retirement.

Using a blended estimation that the current beneficiaries of the CCSD health insurance benefit would equally be dispersed among one of the four percentage contribution levels listed above, such contributions toward health care insurance would generate $1.1 million in savings from the current projected costs of this very expensive benefit for the 2012/13 school year.

Next, while the CCSD budget crafters have done a good job at keeping the athletics budget flat for the past many years, a budget that comprises roughly 1.3 percent of the entire school budget, we must accept that there can be no sacred cows.

Therefore, let’s agree to cut any sport that CCSD cannot field on its own. Limiting students’ options to what is actually available and sustainable within the district may shape future youth programs positively and may help to balance out the viability of several different extracurricular activities.

Next, having to budget $3.16 million for roughly 300 students with special needs is alarming and gives reason for concern. Spending on average over $100K per special-education student is problematic, excessive, and unsustainable.

While this is another one of education’s sacred cows, and while districts are hemmed in by state and federal mandates, an open discussion and exploration of what is appropriate and ultimately sustainable seems to be in order.

Finally, we were asked at the first community forum to share any ideas for raising revenue. I suggest we institute a sales tax with the proceeds earmarked for schools. In the CCSD, our taxes are hemmed in by the number of properties off the tax rolls.

The revenue generated by raising property taxes 1 percent equates to only around $76,000. Nobody wants to see the current budget gap met with a near 33 percent increase property tax.

Last June the Watertown Daily Times indicated that a 1 percent increase in county sales tax would generate nearly $13 million. Additionally, the CCSD School Board and administration should look at all Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes agreements and see if these agreements are still affordable.

I realize none of the above are popular ideas, but something needs to be done and soon. The two largest most controversial areas of the budget – compensation and health benefit--are where the savings must come from.

The suggestions I made above will save CCSD approximately $2.1M, which goes a long way towards addressing the $3.64 forecasted revenue shortfall. Add in reserve funds and we’ll meet the 12/13 budget gap without the planned layoffs and program cuts.

The CCSD community loves it schools. If one thing has been made clear during the budget forums and the Save Our School effort, this sense of pride and affection for Canton Central has been made loud and clear.

Unfortunately, loving the school district isn’t enough. The proposed staffing, program, extracurricular, and athletic cuts will gut the school and provide less education and opportunity for our current and future students. New families will not move here and many of us will consider leaving in order to provide better opportunities for our kids.

We have to pay—in some way—for the CCSD to remain solvent, relevant, and an important part of our community. The taxpayers, the administrators, the teachers, the unions, everyone has to give.

Tim and Amy Lamitie,

Canton