Composure

This is the point in the flight where we begin to think about the descent and landing. We have certainly been flying in some turbulent skies as of late, but we are still on schedule to reach our destination. 

I am trying to juggle a lot of things right now. Financially, we are in the middle of a very significant budget building season. While we have received national attention for our efforts to freeze wages next year, we still need the acceptance of a few more groups to make it happen. Even with the wage freeze, we are going to be without at least 52 people next year. Important people. The planning has to begin to figure out how we move forward without them and without some of the programs that they were providing.

While all of this is going on there is constant pressure from people to cut more, cut less, provide the same services but not increase taxes, increase taxes to keep programs, cut everything altogether, close buildings, and look to merge with other schools.

There is only one word that can describe these times and surprisingly it isn't "stress", it is "composure". 

The plan has been, and will continue to be:  to secure a wage freeze; cut 52 people who represent areas, programs and services; use $2.3M of our $4.425M in reserves; and levy a 4.8% tax levy ($70 on a home valued at $100,000) to balance the budget (8.6% is the levy allowed under a contingent, or failed, budget).

The second part of the plan is to adjust to the loss of staff, plan to find a way to give staff appropriate compensation in the 2012-2013 school year, and already figure out how to close a $1.3M gap that I believe already exists for the 2012-2013 school year.

Keeping composed during these times is key. We have many things to discuss and act upon if we are to remain viable as a school district over the next several years. We need composure to listen to ideas that we have never considered before because things have never been this bad. We also need composure to handle the media when asked to make negative comments about the Governor. I have nothing negative to say about the Governor. I agree that closing the New York State budget gap needs to happen. What I do not agree with is his assertion that we can do that in education without impacting people and students. We cannot. Just admit it and move on. 

There are other things going on besides the budget:

• The swim team has become Section III champions.
• The hockey team accomplished this feat as well during our mid-winter break.
• In the middle schools there have been some awesome Camillus Optimist Club speeches.
• In the elementary schools we just celebrated the first 100 days of school.
• DVD's of Beauty and the Beast should be available any day now for $10 each.
• West Genesee is going to be the host of Joanne Mahoney's State of the County address on Tuesday evening, March 1 in the high school auditorium,

I will be posting an additional budget update later this week as a few more pieces hopefully fall into place. 

Enjoy the week and see you around.

Chris

Budget Update

As you might have heard, I presented our initial budget plan for the 2011-2012 school year at our Board of Education meeting last evening. This was by far the most difficult budget for me to discuss as it takes opportunities away from students and reduces staff in response to the Governor's proposal (the Governor has cut state aid to West Genesee by $5.63M for next year).

Last week we met with 62 employees, from various areas, who will not be returning to the District next year in order to close this gap and balance our budget. We also evaluated our reserves and of the $4.425M that we have available to offset taxes, we are using $2.3M to balance the budget. On top of that we are actively discussing a wage freeze for all of our employees for one year. The reductions, the use of reserves, and the wage freeze result in a tax levy of 4.8%.  A 4.8% tax levy represents a budget that is $1,611,925 less than this years budget and is also $1,114,866 below a "contingent budget" which is a budget that has not been passed by the voters.  A 4.8% tax levy represents an additional $70 on a school tax bill for a home valued at $100,000.

If we are not able to secure a wage freeze, or other factors that we are not currently aware of arise, the Board of Education will have to choose from a list of additional cuts that I provided them last night as well.  While I do not endorse or recommend any of those cuts, we may need to consider some of them to balance our budget.

I have posted a copy of the presentation on the District web site Budget Information page at http://www.westgenesee.org/teacherpage.cfm?teacher=1666.   If you are interested in our budget and what the impact of the Governor's proposal has had and will have on West Genesee, please take a few moments to read it. The presentation represents everything that I know about the budget environment, the cuts, the tax levy, and further considerations. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Chris

Beauty and the Beast!

Back in 2003 I had the opportunity to see a high school production of Peter Pan at Arkport Central School.  They had the flying apparatus, the licensed set, and the official Peter Pan costumes. It was the best high school performance I had EVER seen in seventeen years...until Beauty and the Beast this past weekend. 

Unbelievable. From my seat in the balcony I watched the scenes unfold. Bright coordinated colors, perfectly choreographed sets, and wonderfully precise costumes. The pit? Professional. Then came the students?  More like professional actors and actresses themselves. I closed my eyes several times during the performance and realized that I could have been in a balcony on Broadway or Toronto and heard the same level of performance. I would challenge anyone to find a better sequence of  "Be our Guest" anywhere in the country. Good luck.

After the show was much of the same. Hundreds of little ones packed the hallways looking for a glimpse of their favorite characters. As Gaston, the Beast, Belle, Lumiere, and the others made their way into the back stage area to meet and take pictures they stayed in perfect character. I actually saw some of the younger children tear up after getting a chance to meet their favorite star. Stars they were, and are. Thank you for a great performance and for making some of our younger students feel so special! I am very proud of all of you.

Beauty and the Beast erased the downtrodden feeling I had gotten at the Legislative Breakfast earlier in the day. This budget thing is going nowhere but downhill I am afraid, and the news we received from our elected officials was not pleasant. As the next weeks unfold you will begin to see the impact of the budget on our programs. I am hopeful that the first round of cuts that we made last week (62 full and part-time employees) will be the only round we will need to make.

Lastly, I am currently sitting on a committee through the Town of Camillus Parks and Recreation Department that is looking at ways to maximize and possibly refresh all of the park areas in our community. We are also looking at ways to continue to leverage our own facilities at the school since the public helps to pay for those as well.  There is a brief survey being administered through the Park and Recreation Department to assess from the community where the needs are. This survey can be accessed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/camillus-parks-and-rec-survey.

Have a great week. I will post again on Friday before we head into mid-winter break.

Chris

Some Good News for a Change

Amidst all of the layoffs, budget building, and general depression of late Winter came a weekend full of academic successes. First, several of our students competed in the Post Standard Spelling Bee, and while they did not advance to the championship in Washington, DC, they represented themselves, their families, and West Genesee very valiantly. (Great job Joshua Mattice, Elise Dunshee, Jackson Powell, and Brennan Costello!)

The West Genesee High School Academic Decathlon team won the Section III Championship. The Decathlon is no joke. Students have to take written tests and submit their brains to other forms of academic challenges. This was a great win for this team and for Scott Duda, their advisor, because they have been trying to climb into the top spot for three years and were able to make it happen. (For more information and a list of the participants and their medals, click here.) Their quest for the state championship will happen March 11-12 at Onondaga Community College. Congratulations!

Also, our Science Olympiad teams did exceptionally well in their competition. While they did not win overall, they made some advancements that show promise for the future. I would like to thank the advisor Carm Priminano and all participants for a great showing.

Beauty and the Beast will begin this Thursday. If you had the chance to see the preview on Channel 9 earlier this week, you saw poetry in motion. The student performers were, and are, spectacular.  I cannot wait to attend the show on Saturday. Tickets are going fast for each show so please take the time to contact Bill Davern at 487-4612 to get your tickets (there is reserved seating for these performances).

On the athletic side, I had the chance to watch our cheerleaders participate in the Sweetheart Classic in our gym on Saturday. There were teams from about 30 schools which made for about a 110 decibel performance area from about 7:45 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.  Again, our students, advisors, and parents did a great job showing off our facilities, planning a wonderful event, and raising some money for charity and for their competitions that will happen in the next few weeks. Great job!

Lastly, at Nottingham pool this Tuesday is a chance for our swim team to go undefeated, again!  Bob Marks has taken his crew and has helped every single athlete on the team to contribute something to the cause.  Best of luck and congratulations on another great year!

Have a wonderful week. I will post about our budget development and some interesting options being considered at the state education department a little later in the week.

Thanks-

Chris

Well...We Have the Numbers

The Governor has had his say. I understand everything he said about "righting the ship", "forging a new future", etc...I also understand his desire to reduce funding to schools. I disagree with his assertions that schools can close the gaps he presented through the use of reserves and pay freezes however. We do not have enough reserves to fill the gap for longer than a year, and a pay freeze nets the District only 20% of the gap we are facing.

How big is the gap for West Genesee? Big. Well over $5M. There will be no way to close this gap and present a budget that  is fiscally responsible to you without massive reductions to all areas of our operation.  We are building a budget proposal that represents our best attempt at retaining opportunities for children while balancing the budget. I am in the process of notifying staff who will be affected by our budget reductions, and I will share more with the public once my staff have been made aware of the upcoming changes that we are going to need to make.

I have other much more positive news to share, but I will do so later in the week in another post. The two paragraphs above need some time to digest. Thank you.

Chris

Big Week

Last week was pretty tough, to be quite honest. As a leader I am looked upon to be the rock of the organization, the person with all of the answers, and the person that other people look to when they do not know what to do.  The true test of a leader is if you can survive a bombardment of negativity from every angle that you can think of and still come out on the other side making positive and correct decisions without taking on anything more than a scratch. I have many years of experience doing this, but when you can physically hear your own head working and everything else is quiet, you know that you have reached the limit.

I am glad that we had strategic planning last week. It was a way to watch stakeholders from various areas of our school community come together and figure out how we will stay on top after resources and opportunities dwindle. I am pleased with the results, and I think you as community members will be also. At our Board of Education meeting on February 2 our group leader Deb Geiss will talk about the Strategic Plan and it will then be placed on our web site.

This is a BIG week coming up. I cannot imagine being the Governor right now preparing to publish his budget for next year. It is highly anticipated to be the most devastating budget in New York State history. I cannot wait. We have done our homework at West Genesee. We know what we need to do, and we have put the pieces in place to do them. We just need our number from the Governor, and we will have a preliminary budget built in about three to four days. Our first swipe at necessary reductions will be revealed, and we will begin to march toward the end of the year. January is my least favorite month, and this January has taken the cake!

Around this time of the year I get asked how cold it needs to be to close or delay school. First, it would be rare to delay school due to cold temperatures. Even two hours in this part of the country is not enough time to raise the temperature, and in some cases the temperature even goes down as the day progresses. We do not have a specific Board policy related to cold weather, but as a long-standing practice I have always considered closing if the regular temperature hits five below with no windchill and twenty-five below with the windchill. From what I have read, next week might produce a couple of days that will get us near those benchmarks, but then again I cancelled evening activities last Friday after being told that there was big lake effect snow coming only to see a few flakes. Weatherman is definitely my next career.

As part of our budget plan, we are going to reduce the number of paper Communicators to about four (plus the budget issue).  This move will save us about $18K. We are going to replace the other Communicators with an E-blast to still get information out to you, just cheaper and faster. I am very, very excited at the initial layouts and structure of the E-blast. We will continue to develop it and let you know how you can begin to receive your electronic newsletter as soon as we are ready to release it.

Have a great week. Keep your chins up whereever you are and remember that difficult times bring about innovation, change, and advancement!

Chris

The Worst Part of My Job is...

Losing a student is, by far, worse than budgets, angry people, layoffs, and job stress. I have lost eight students since becoming a superintendent. Even today I could tell you who they were, their personality, and traits they left behind that we all miss to this day. 

Last week we lost Craig Rienhardt, a junior, to cancer. Cancer does not discriminate and is a very cruel disease. Craig was upbeat, kind, energetic, and full of life. His parents and family are very strong people. 

Many of his family came to our basketball game where three students, Austin Gambino, Peter Johnson, and Lindsey Sweet, held a 50/50 raffle and a blue ribbon campaign for Craig. They wanted to give the proceeds ($1,000 in about a half of a basketball game) to Craig and his family the next day as a show of solidarity and strength. Unfortunately, he passed away during the night and the students did not get a chance to get closer with one of their closest friends. On Friday the staff held a one day fundraiser to help the family as well.  What we take away from a situation like this is that as big as we are we are, we are still small enough to come together for good causes and to help bring peace. May we never forget Craig Rienhardt.

Tomorrow night is the "Dialogue with the Superintendent". It will be held in the high school large group instruction room from 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. If you have questions for me and you don't want to e-mail them to me, call me and ask them, or see me at an event to talk, then this is the place to be. You can place a question on an index card and I will answer anything that is asked to the best of my ability. Should be fun!

Wednesday night is our Board of Education Meeting. I will be giving an overview of the current budget situation and what things (generally because I have not spoken with affected staff yet) are likely to be reduced as we try to zero in on the actual deficit that the Governor will announce during his State of the State address. I will tell you that at least something from every aspect of our organization will be affected, and I will also share with you that I am in a position where many of the decisions that we have made will affect students. Last year we were largly able to avoid this from happening, but with the size of the impending gap there is just no way to avoid it for a second year.

Thursday and Friday we have our Strategic Planning Sessions. This is where a large group of people gathers to help create the guiding document for the District. This will be an interesting session as District initiatives meet dwindling resources.

Budget aside, I hope to get back into my routine of visiting all of our classrooms so I can see all of the cool things that our students are doing. This is all for now, but stay tuned. If anything changes I will be sure to keep you posted. Have a great week.

Chris