N-W budget in progress

by Susan Mikula Campbell
Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, March 6, 2008

The Niagara-Wheatfield Board of Education will be receiving the superintendent’s budget for the 2008-09 school year on March 19.

The board was expected to give school district officials direction on what it wanted the budget to contain at its meeting last night (March 5).

Superintendent Judith H. Howard has said she doesn’t anticipate any cuts in programs and services, since the district’s enrollment continues to increase.

“I do expect to deliver a very reasonable budget with regard to a tax increase,” she said.

The budget for the current school year is $63,993,566.

The school district has eight different tax rates, depending on which town residents live, said Kerin Dumphrey, district business manager. Last year, the average tax rate was down 7 cents per $1,000 assessed value.

Students come to N-W from the towns of Niagara, Wheatfield, Lewiston and Cambria, as well as the Tuscarora Nation.

Dumphrey said the superintendent’s budget won’t be simply a compilation of everybody’s budget requests.

“She goes over it with a fine-toothed comb and makes sure it is ready for the board,” he said.

The latest the board can adopt the budget is April 21. It will go to the voters on Tuesday, May 20.

“We’ll bring the most reasonable budget we can to the people, and hopefully, one with the least impact to the taxpayer,” Dumphrey said.

The board set its annual public hearing on the budget for 7 p.m. May 7 at the High School’s Adult Learning Center, 2292 Saunders Settlement Road, Sanborn.

•At last week’s Board of Education meeting on Feb. 27, Clark Godshall, Orleans/Niagara BOCES district superintendent, asked for and received approval from N-W to create a career and technical equipment reserve fund for BOCES.

Being able to set up a reserve fund will allow BOCES to purchase and replace technologically advanced equipment for instruction when needed, he said. The fund would be used for items costing more than $1,000, but less than $5,000. Source of the fund would be sale of no longer needed equipment, interest earnings, and funding surplus. The move will help stabilize BOCES tuition over the long term, he said.

Godshall also delivered some praise to the school district.

“You’re really developing a very nice reputation,” he said, adding, “Whenever I come over here, I pick up some ideas.”

•The board approved the appointment of Timothy Carter as principal at Colonial Village Elementary School for the next school year after Carol Beebe retires. Howard described him as a “positive and delightful administrator.”

Carter is assistant principal at West Street Elementary, where he said Principal Theron Mong has been his mentor.

On his first walk through at Colonial Village, he told the board last week, “not that I heard angels, but I did hear music.”

He promised to be an advocate every day for not only the children of Colonial Village, but also the entire district.