Schools

YCSD Superintendent Napolitano: Staying Under 2-Percent Tax Cap "Almost Impossible"

Yorktown Central School District superintendent Ralph Napolitano says the "face of education as we have known it will begin to change."

The budget season at the has begun and during Monday’s board of education meeting, superintendent of schools Dr. Ralph Napolitano reviewed the .

The in June by the state legislature and was pushed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a way to control spending and since then schools and municipalities have been figuring out ways to stay under the cap.

Napolitano posted a letter on the district's website Tuesday addressing parents and community members on the 2012-13 budget and the state tax levy cap. (Click on the pdf file to the right to read the entire letter.)

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"The reality of not exceeding 2% would mean that the District would have to ensure that all of its increase in operational costs cannot exceed $1.4 million dollars," he wrote. "In a time of unprecedented tax certioraris, cost increases to heating, lighting, transportation, health insurance, pension plans, unfunded mandates, contractual obligations, reductions in aid and response to twenty-first century educational and facility needs, the task is almost impossible."

Napolitano said that when a district can only increase its revenues by 1.4 million, the amount could be absorbed by one or two substantive tax certioraris. 

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"Where will Districts get the additional monies to offset all of their other expenses?" he wrote. "While all Districts do have an opportunity to retain some monies in a fund balance (4%), continuous removal of money from this fund will eventually cause the depletion of this account."

According to Napolitano the "face of education as we have known it will begin to change" by maximizing resources, reducing costs and identifying alternative funding resources. In addition, all positions and programs would be reviewed to determine their sustainability and class sizes would begin to increase. 

He listed tax certioraris, unfunded mandates, benefit cost increases, contractual obligations, service costs increases, and facility upkeep as factors to bring them above the 2-percent tax cap. 

"Therefore, we will have to look at those costs that we can control and formulate plans to control them," he said. 

Napolitano questioned how districts would sustain their educational principles without control over a large number of their costs and without relief from another funding source.

"The education of our children is far too valuable not to have an alternative plan for funding," he wrote in his letter. "To expect that districts will simply continue to cut expenses by eliminating programs, people and required services is unrealistic and deleterious to the future of public school education. As a school community, we must all carefully reflect on what needs to be accomplished to save public education and how together we can accomplish this goal."

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