Nanuet Schools Answer Custodial, Transportation Questions

At this week's school board meeting, the board had its final budget review and during the public forum, some residents spoke up about salvaging the salary of Music Teacher Alex Fung. Others had questions about transportation and custodial staffing.

Transportation

Back in October, Superintendent Mark McNeill brought up a proposal of reconfigurating the elementaries and middle school and that it could possibly have a large cost savings for the district. However, in February, McNeill decided to table reconfiguration discussions to next year because they needed more time to look into the matter.

At Tuesday night's board meeting, one resident asked about the possible transportation savings that were discussed at the October meeting and whether or not the money saved could be used toward saving some of the staff.

"I raised that issue (in) October along with the grade reconfiguration … What I learned was that the savings was not going to really materialize in transportation, so I took it off the proposal for the (2013-14) budget," said McNeill. "What we did about a month ago is hire a transportation supervisor consultant. He’s an individual that’s the creater of the software of our routing and we’ve been using the bus routing for maybe 10 years or more."

"He’s going to look at our transportation program started relatively soon and I’m hoping that with his expertise that we’ll have some specific financial information regarding transportation for (future budgets), but I wasn’t going to take a risk and change the transportation program only to discover that the cost savings aren’t there and that would have been the only reason for doing it," he added. "We’ve been looking under every rock to save money. We’re not putting it aside, we just need more time."

Phil Sions, assistant superintendent for business, added that this consultant would be at no extra cost to the district.

"He’s being paid on a contingent basis which means he receive a dime. He doesn’t receive a fee, if he saves us money then he gets an ‘x’ percent of that," he said. "It’s no out-of-pocket expense for the district."

Anne Byrne added that the transportation savings seen in the 2013-14 budget were from private transportation, referring to the $84,259 total savings in the Pupil Transportation line in the budget.

"Also, we are on universal busing because there was a referendum put on the budget (many) years ago for universal busing and it passed. In order to take that back, we would have to go out again (for a public vote) with another referendum," said Byrne.

Custodians

One Nanuet resident said she felt that there was a high ratio of custodians to students in the Nanuet schools.

"A lot of that issue has to do with the square footage that has to be cleaned and there are standard charts that are used in the industry and we usually go by that," said Sions. "You can go down to one custodian, but I don’t know how clean your building would be. There is that tension between keeping your payroll down but you also want to make sure that your buidings are cleaned and well maintained, so I think we’re at the right place."

McNeill added that the budget they’re working on includes a reduction in custodial staffing.

At the March 12 board meeting, Superintendent Mark McNeill presented his recommended staffing cuts:

• 9.6 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) Teaching Positions

• Art .4
• Elementary 3.0
• English 1.0
• Library Media Specialist 1.0
• Music 1.0
• Physical Education 1.2
• Science 1.0
• Technology 1.0

• 4.8 FTE Teaching Assistant Positions
• 2.2 FTE Clerical Positions
• 2.0 FTE Custodial Positions
• 2.0 FTE Monitor Positions
• All Freshman Coaches
• Assistant Varsity Coaches (except for Wrestling and Football)

Related Patch Articles:

March

• Budget Workshop I: Nanuet Schools Break Down the Budget
• Budget Workshop II: Nanuet Schools Talk Staffing Cuts
• Some Fight Against Proposed Cut of Nanuet Teacher

February

• $4M Gap In Draft 2013-14 Nanuet School Budget
• McNeill Requests Tabling of Grade Reconfiguration

October 

• Future Nanuet School Budget: "Going to be Survival"
• Nanuet School Budget: Possible Depletion of Reserves
• Superintendent McNeill Explains Proposed Changes
• Nanuet School Budget: Breaking Down the Numbers
• Nanuet Schools 2013-14 Budget: $3.5M Budget Gap
• Nanuet School Board: Federal Call to Action