Letter to the Board
Letter to the Board
| 1. | Reading Recovery Program Report: Attached is the annual report of the Reading Recovery Program. We made significant progress this year and the program is doing a great job providing services to our children in need. They did a nice job with the report as well. | |
| 2. | Monroe County Sales Tax: You will recall that Monroe County is suing school districts and towns for the right to take back at least a portion of the sales tax. The Judge in the case has signed an order saying that the Monroe County Legislature does have the legal right to elect the "Medicaid Set Aside" legislation, but that it is premature for the Court to decide if the County still has to pay the schools districts and towns the same amount, since the County has not actually voted for the Medicaid Set Aside Legislation. So that leaves school districts, towns and the County up in the air as to whether they can take money away. Keep in mind that for us the amount is relatively small ($6,000-$8,000). Our attorneys will appeal this decision within the next 30 days. As you can see these are still very preliminary steps and we should expect it will be some time before it is settled. In the meantime, Monroe County still faces a budget shortfall and they need to figure out how they will close the gap. I'll keep you abreast of developments. | |
| 3. | NYSSBA: Fiscal oversight workshop information. I have attached a flyer on upcoming programs however, I would like to remind you that Four County will be offering this series next spring also at less cost. | |
| 4. | Energy Project: On Wednesday I had a lengthy meeting with Atlantic Energy, Bob Miller and Greg Atseff. We reviewed SED’s comments regarding the project. Each of their questions has been addressed. Our responses went out to SED today. That probably means an answer in two weeks. If they are true to form, there will be additional questions which we will answer and then the project will be approved. Because SED has been backed up so far we are not sure what if anything will get done this year. We do know the windows will wait until next summer. Depending on how quickly the contractors can mobilize most other items will have to be done second shift during the school year or wait until next summer. | |
| 5. | Eagle Ventures Student: One of our Eagle Ventures students who is from Williamson has been lifting weights with our football team and has asked to play on our team. There is a procedure called “a team of one” that allows a student from one school to participate on another school’s team if the home school does not have the sport (Williamson does not have football). I have always said no to these requests in the past, feeling that the school team needs to be made up of the students who attend the school. I feel differently about this situation, because although he is technically from Williamson, he attends school at Wayne through the Eagle Ventures program. The students he knows are Wayne Central students. A student can only participate in a team of one if both Boards of Education approve the arrangement. I would like to ask you to consider this proposal at our August meeting. I think it is the right thing for the young man and this is the school he is attending. Please feel free to contact me if you have and questions, concerns or other things I should consider before making the recommendation to you. | |
| 6. | Freewill Principalship: The interview team for the Freewill principalship completed their interviews this week. Their task was to send me three candidates, with the understanding that they should only send people they would be happy with as principal. Unfortunately there was only one candidate all of them were completely satisfied with. I had the option of having them start over, interviewing some more candidates, or seeing if I felt the one candidate selected would be good for our district. Interestingly many of the candidates who applied for Freewill had also applied for the OE principalship. The one person they selected turns out to be the same person who was the runner-up at OE. Her name is Jona Wright. I liked both Jona and Mike for the OE position. I almost selected Jona but Mike had two years of experience that I felt OE needed. I met with Jona yesterday to discuss the position and will make a decision over the weekend as to whether I will recommend her to you. She is a bright, energetic and wants to work for Wayne Central. My only hesitation is that she is 8 months pregnant and wouldn’t be able to open school at Freewill in September. I would have to find an interim to do that. I feel strongly she is the right candidate for long term, but I have to sort through this starting date for myself. | |
| 7. | Retirement Incentive: A bill has passed both house of the State Legislature that would allow public retirement system members who have reached age 55 and accumulated 25 years of service to retire without penalty. The bill was sent to the Governor last Friday. His deadline for action is midnight July 19. Since the Governor is on vacation in Europe this week we probably won’t hear anything until the 19th. This particularly affects people who may not have started teaching in a public school right out of college. Those that began in a private school or took additional time to finish college often do not have the currently required thirty years of service needed for retirement. This bill would be helpful to them. Albany insiders believe he will veto the bill. If he doesn’t we may see more retirements. | |
| 8. | Fund Balance: The Governor did veto the bill that would have phased in a 4% limit on unreserved fund balances for school districts. This was highly lobbied for by NYSSBA. He is quoted as saying that the bill failed to include, “a mechanism to return these funds to local taxpayers as property tax relief”. Of course he didn’t explain how the 4% could be available to meet unanticipated needs if it was returned to the tax payers. | |
| 9. | Upcoming Events: | |
| July 24 – August 4 – Administrative block out dates for vacation (no meetings scheduled) | |||
| 10. | Attachments: | |
| a. | Reading Recovery Annual Report | |
| b. | NYSSBA Fiscal Workshop brochure | |