Lew-Port Board squabbles over
Property Tax Report Card

Board, LPUT continue to disagree

by Larry Austin
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, April 23, 2005

Like academic report cards that somehow don’t make it home to parents, Lewiston Porter’s Property Tax Report Card didn’t make it into the newspaper on schedule.

The board failed to approve the Property Tax Report Card, which is published each year by state mandate, at its meeting April 19. The report card specifies the 2005-06 spending in the proposed budget, the percentage increase or decrease over last year’s budget, and the estimated tax levy if the budget is adopted.

3.28 Percent Drop

Lew-Port proposes to spend $35,038,250, a zero percent increase over the current budget. With an estimated $800,000 increase in state aid from last year, the school’s total tax levy would decrease from $20,392,058 for 2004-05 to $19,723,390, a drop of 3.28 percent, said Assistant Superintendent Donald Rappold.

Rappold said the state requires publication of the report card by April 22. Friday the matter was still in limbo.

The absence of board member Louis Palmeri left the board deadlocked at 3-3 on report card, one vote short of passage. Board President Ed Lilly, Vice President David Schaubert, and Len Palumbo voted for the report card, while Jack Burmeister, Nils Olsen, and Carol Rogers voted against it. The matter is usually a pro forma vote.

School attorney F. Warren Kahn said he would ask the board to approve the report card at a special meeting scheduled for April 27. Neither Rappold nor Kahn knew what if any penalty exists for missing the publication deadline.

Lower Tax Rate

Schaubert said the 2005-06 budget will result in a tax rate of $21.226 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, a 5 percent drop from the 2004-05 rate of $22.497.

Lilly said the 2005-06 budget will “illustrate to the community that we are very concerned about the overspending that has taken place over recent years.”

Board member Dr. Nils Olsen noted the willingness of people to move to Lewiston Porter to take advantage of the quality of the school district, and the balancing act the board must perform in weighing the tax rate with the quality of the education offered. The increase in the tax rate was six percent last year, with additional tax payments coming from reassessments, he said.

$800,000 State Increase

Olsen, Jack Burmeister, and Carol Rogers favored using the $800,000 increase in state aid to reduce cuts already made by the board.

“Particularly given the rather Draconian nature of some of these cuts, I would suggest that it is appropriate to make this small adjustment in the budget to reflect the knowledge that we very fortuitously were given this year, which is that the state aid to the district has in fact increased, thanks to the efforts of our legislators and the governor,” Olsen said.

“I believe we’d have a better chance of passing the budget if we add the $800,000 to it, because I don’t think this community’s going to pass a zero-increase budget,” Burmeister said.

Lilly said after the meeting that the $800,000 would go to the taxpayers’ pockets.

Proposal Fails

Also failing by a 3-3 vote was board Vice President David Schaubert’s proposal to use this year’s existing $125,000 capital reserve fund with $125,000 added to the tax levy in 2005-06 to create a $250,000 capital project fund. Schaubert said the money would fund projects as outlined in the school’s five-year capital project plan.

The $125,000 addition would need to pass in a proposition at the polls on May 17.

Schaubert said he hoped to establish a yearly capital project plan. The school is reimbursed by the state at 72 percent of costs for capital projects, payable the following year.

Olsen said the capital plan is a great idea were it not for the cuts already planned.

“If we’re going to add money to the budget, I would prefer to see it added in support of restoring instructional positions,” Olsen said.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Whitney Vantine also cautioned against exhausting the entire $125,000, noting the need for a reserve. He also suggested waiting until after the five-year plan report is completed sometime in May to ascertain what projects to tackle and to identify possible funding streams.

Board, LPUT Square Off

The board and the teachers union stepped on each other in another bad spin around the dance floor during the meeting. Jean Henesey, president of the Lewiston Porter United Teachers union, said the union has offered the board a way to save the district over half a million dollars.

“The teachers have made an offer in answer to Mr. Schaubert’s request for ideas which might help the budget crisis, which the board of education has created by expecting to operate within a zero percent increase,” Henesey said.

The teachers offered a zero percent salary increase for 2005-06, Henesey said, with a slight raise after July 1. The teachers union also offered to defer the district’s $275,000 health insurance contribution until July 2006 and to reopen the retirement incentive, Henesey said. Henesey said the offer is “unheard of in any school.”

Union Suprised

“We are astonished the board of education has not responded with a unanimous vote of yes to this proposal, given the fact that they are attempting to save the taxpayers as much money as possible,” Henesey said. “After all, every little half million helps. The LPUT is patiently waiting for an answer from the board of education.”

The current contract expires June 30.

“We met one week ago with Karl Kristoff, Mr. Schaubert, Dr. Vantine, and Mr. Rappold,” Henesey said. “And I would assume if you are having to make important decisions in a timely manner, that might have been something that should have been discussed rather quickly.”

“If we can save what Ms. Henesey says, resulting in half a million or a million dollars, we could probably afford to hire some teachers back,” Burmeister said. “It seems like we better do it quite quickly.”

Schaubert said the offer of a retirement incentive was raised by the board and offered in March, but the ball is in the union’s court.

“We replied to you. I asked yesterday. I got the answer. You chose not to accept it,” Schaubert said.

Newspaper Flap

He also objected to receiving a call on his answering machine from another newspaper’s reporter asking for his comments about a confidential meeting even before he came home from the meeting.

“I was at that negotiation, and I had a message on my answering machine from the newspaper for comment before I got home from that meeting,” Schaubert said.

Henesey refused to answer Lilly when he asked her several times who gave confidential information to the newspaper.

“If you want to fight it out in the paper, we can fight it out in the paper,” Schaubert said.

Community Comments

Several members of the community commented, among them Larry Siegrist of Swann Road.

“I have been a strong union worker all my life and I fully understand how a union functions for the benefit of its members. I have also seen how stubbornness with regard to not adapting to changing economic times has cost many good union jobs,“ Siegrist said. “The union members here at Lew-Port need to make sure that they elect representatives who really have all the members best long-term interest at heart. Because times have changed, this school needs to improve its education and costs need to be reduced.”

“There have been remarks that the students are here as a toy of the teachers union, and I take that as a personal insult,” said Terri Drennan of the Save Our Schools student group. “Because being governmentally active and understanding where things are going and what’s going on in the community and who the people are that are in a sense controlling you, life is very, very important to me.”

Norman R. Bock, of Hillview Court, said of the loss of a .5 music teacher: "It will be an extreme disservice to the senior high string students that have spent years studying their instruments to not have a specialized instructor to complete their secondary music education."

More Than Money

"This is more than a money issue for Lew-Port, this is a quality of life issue,” Bock said. “Yes, students can be taught only what is mandated by the state and it would be inexpensive. It would be inexpensive primarily because you won't have many students to teach, their families will move to school districts that care more about having quality programs than the cheapest programs.”

In other news, the board approved all but two election inspectors for the May 17 budget vote and board election. On a 5-1 vote, with Carol Rogers voting no, the board removed Sam Leighton and Jack Burmeister from the list of eligible election inspectors. Schaubert called it an "appearance of impropriety" to have the spouse of a candidate and a sitting board member as an inspector. Burmeister said he had no objection to the move. Sam Leighton’s husband James is running for school board against James Mezhir, Neil Richardson, Robert Laub, and Lynn Garcia. The public will elect two to replace Burmeister and Olsen, who have decided not to seek re-election.

April 27 Meeting

The board scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday, April 27, at 6:30 pm in the Community Resource Center to vote on the BOCES budget and to consider other possible business.

District Clerk Debra Sherman announced that applications for absentee ballots for the May 17 budget vote and election are available on the district's website (www.lew-port.com) or by calling 286-7266. Qualified voters must be registered with the Niagara County Board of Elections or with the district prior to the vote.