Notes on January 29th "Community Leaders" Meeting

These are very raw notes on what went on in the meeting; corrections appreciated. Some tentative corrections in red, but that does not mean this is complete; I've seen some corrections in email which I (Tom Myers) haven't entered. I'll try to go over it this weekend, but comments/emails would be good. Thanks to Astrid, Heather, Amy et al. 

Community Leadership Meeting

January 29, 2014 @ 5:30pm

Hamilton High School Library

Diana opened the meeting:

New fiscal advisory committee

Not a discussion center on what may not be possible.

School has handcuffs.

Sharing what the school's restraints are.

Last week new state runs.

Unfortunately, surprised..... as the worst happened....

Combined wealth ratio for next year: We are above 1.0

HCS is above Cazenovia and New Hartford

Due to salaries, properties

Deficit is about $250,0000

Cutting some program and 4-5 full-time equivalents.

Diana writing letter to Senator Dave Valesky.

Total additional almost $19,000 received, 0.44% increase.

GEA this year $515,000

GEA is due to a gap 5 years ago. Why still GEA if there's a surplus now and no longer a deficit?

Five years of this GEA, so the noisier we are the better.

Teacher contracts expired last year. So lots of question marks.

Diana is giving the word to Matt Crumb:

Matt provided packet. Files accessible at HCS site???

Revenues and expenditures.

Revenues:

First page is a summary of executive budget proposal and the impact on MO-Boces.

Second page unofficial overall results.

Third page anticipated wealth ratio. HCS jumped from 0.958 to 1.007

Note by Diana: HCS more students in poverty than Cazenovia yet we have a higher wealth ratio.

RWADA Aid ratio? Resident Weighted Average Daily Attendance.

https://stateaid.nysed.gov/boces/pdf_docs/boces_rwada_report-sams1213.pdf

Look at combined wealth ratio and RWADA ratio to see how much revenue we are getting back.

Please help explain this further...... (Astrid's note) From what I heard, the amount the state reimburses for BOCES services are determined by the RWADA which has gone down to .554.

Page 4 HCS almost $300,000 restored to us in 3 years. Much less than other districts.

Last column percentage GEA restored compared to tax levy.

HCS compared to other districts way higher tax burden.

In summary: Wealth up, enrollments down.... less money

Diana's note: Our reassessment means that in a year or so we will take an even greater hit.

Matt on expenditures:

We will be in negotiations with every district employee. District wages possibly 1.5% increase. Health insurance 8.5% increase. See page in packet for the remaining numbers. Tax levy: 2% allowable tax levy increase $130,000.

Summary: Projected deficit with 1.5% wage increase $210,000 and with wage increase $262,000.

Based on Susan Marafino's question regarding wealth ratio, the response was: 28% free and reduced lunch at HCS versus Caz at 16%.

Ferdinand Von Muench asked question. Technology-type funding. Voted on in November. Smart schools. These funds would not help us this coming year. Does not help with salaries.

Aaron Robinson: Tax on true 17%. Missed this question/ answer....

Matt and Diana: Our tax on true is actually not that high in comparison to other districts.

Diana Bowers explained last page in packet:

Methods of supplementing our Annual Budget to allow for financial stability:

59 FTE - versus 75 a few years back - back in 2007.

Cost per pupil $10,154 per student, tad bit higher than surrounding schools.

$19,286 total expenditure per pupil including instructional costs.

Where HCS excells: $22,624 for special ed which is lower than other schools surrounding us and state average These savings are due to servicing students in–house rather than sending them to get services and the implementation of RTI.

Diana on what has been cut regarding staffing:

We started with 3 sections in each grade. Now mostly only 2 sections. Most departments at first 4 teachers and now only 3.

To what extend are we allowed to advertise? Hands are tied in many ways. Sports boosters can collect money and Emerald Foundation as well. It’s illegal for schools to solicit donations.

Susan brought up again getting a complete HCS alumni list to request for money for Emerald Foundation.

Diana: About 5 year’s back when we started the Annual Alumni Chicken b-b-que we compiled a list of alumni, it may’ve not been complete but it was substantial.

Stephanie McClintock: What funds can Emerald provide to schools?

Heather Cigeroglu: We can provide funds for special projects, technical items, teacher grants, student scholarships but no salaries. Donations can’t be earmarked for a specific item but donors can request an area they would like to support.

Hamilton Initiative was mentioned.

Colgate help was discussed briefly.

Ellen Larson: Can we make money by offering distance learning for Latin to other schools as HCS is the only school in 100 miles to offer the language. Diana said that one of the problems is different bell schedule. But with tablets you can solve this timing issue Ellen said.

Diana: What about offering distance learning of our AP classes which Morrisville-Eaton lost due to budget cuts. Again bell schedule an issue. Also, unless teachers are hovering over a student shoulders while completing on-line course work, the success rate of such distance learning is low.

Aaron: Could ME send students over to take a half day for our AP classes. Would that work? Could that give us money.

Ellen: What about seminar type afternoon sessions for money - Ag, science groups? Lot of organizing.....

Stephanie Fadale: Longer school days and four days per week? Does it change the state aid? Are their contractual limitation?

Ferdinand: Does this benefit our kids?

Astrid: Several Governors proposed longer school year and school day. However, where's the funding coming from?

David Hollis:

Downtown businesses are already funding so much. Colgate Inn donates $30,000 per year to HCS. ($30,000 for local donations, not just HCS?) Hamilton asks already for so much.

Morgan Larson: Can we raise taxes to fund this $250,000 deficit. Yes, we can but with risks.

Stephanie: Can HCS rent out classrooms at night? Can't be to for-property organizations says Diana. Can we bring Boces here? Can we be our own Boces? Diana says moving or starting our own just hasn't happened.

Ellen: School budget for dummies. Graph in back NYS highest expense and lowest state funding.

What is this reason? Diana does not have the answers. Can we do away with Regents?

Astrid: I'm all for doing away Regents.

Heather: In response to David Hollis comment, unfortunately I believe this is going to continue to be the new normal. Schools will continue to receive less and less and their communities and/or corporations will have to subsidize the gap. I just looked over Commissioner King’s presentation of the 2014-15 budget and it’s grim. The majority of the budget is slated for testing, making tests, preparing for the tests, testing material. There is very little going towards actual instruction. Assessment so much time we have little left for instruction but yet the state and federal government wants us to increase scores?!@#!

Aaron: Write letters to our politicians.

Heather mentioned having written letters. I’ve pulled together the contact information of key state officials for other as well as some links to resources that help explain the financial and education and also provide advocacy information. She can e-mail contacts to them to all. I know the school is not technically allowed to distribute this information but maybe the PTO can help.

Ellen: Paper letters more influential than email.

Susan: Yes, paper is better, but email and phone better than nothing. Writing is very important.

Make the letters a bit personal --like if your a teacher.

Ferdinand: What do we do if we're stuck with the budget? Mayor is here. We could ask for up to 6% tax increase. Pledge from Hamiltonians to give more due to this tricky budget situation.

Jim Ford:

As Colgate acquires property does it stay on tax roll?

Mayor says yes.

What is the Colgate amount that is given to school district?

Diana: $200,000 per year. Then went up to $500,000 per year to HCS.

How many students have we lost?

Matt: 540 down from 606 which does not include pre-K numbers.

Ferdinand: Can we issue new bonds at lower rate?

Diana and Matt: Some bonds we can some we can't

Barbara Schindler: What would this district be like if we were a charter school?

Diana: Not as easy as you think. However, maybe it’s an option looking into.

I saw Diana write this down in her notes.

Aaron: Natural gas conversion - can that be bonded.

Matt is looking into that. Conversion cost would help this year.

Susan: Resource officer cost $5,000 but budgeted $20,000. Could this be cut? Could Emerald Foundation fund this. Diana answers no. Emerald Foundation mission issue. The HEF mission is to enrich programs, support innovative ideas in teaching, student opportunities at HCS, not personnel.

Ellen: What is the out of pocket cost difference to do the 6% versus 2%.

Matt: If you stayed within the cap, you could gain back the 2% tax increase.

Amy Hurta: So if you paid the extra 4% needed, you'd benefit the school that much more.

Matt: Cannot provide firm estimate on out of pocket cost for such tax increase. Differs for every person due to personal equalization rates.

Jim Ford: Very upset over Mid-York weekly ABCs advertisement. He taught in the Madison School district and felt the ad bad-mouthed our neighbors. He had never read such an arrogant piece in the paper. He called for somebody present in the meeting to come out and say who was part of this initiative.

Silence.......Awkward Silence….
(Apparently there was a discussion after the meeting, in which Jim did not identify any particular "arrogant" -- or false -- items in the ad. I [TM] was certainly one of the group, though in the end none of my too-geeky contributions to the ABCs were used, except that I was one of those objecting to a couple of things that could be misinterpreted as Morrisville put-downs. None of them made it into the ad or even into the ABCs page so I really would like to hear more about this.)

Diana: $5000 in tuition per transfer student from other districts. 25 kids total at this point. This is not a money-maker, just breaking even. They pay at cost. We are only responsible for paying transport to students going to other schools within district - like New Life Christian.

Barbara: Negotiation with teachers is very important.

Diana will be posting on blog about the meeting. All suggestions can be posted and will be brought to next meeting.

Molly: Any fundraising going on, please let us know.

Ferdinand: Budget of districts in our league would be useful. Having board members from other similar districts come over with ideas.

Matt: It’s very difficult to compare budgets between schools.

Diana: It would be more useful to compare districts with similar wealth ratios.

Ellen: We spend a lot more on programming. Are there any other obvious cooperative ventures that may fall into place?

Diana: This can't be rushed. Gotta be done right and it may take time.

Ellen: Are we still having conversations despite merger no-vote?

Matt and Diana: Resounding yes.

Ellen and Diana: RTI: response to intervention: The sooner it is implemented the less the overall cost as support is front-loaded. Early intervention ensures an earlier and better success rate and thus we spend less as the student gets older. Conclusion: money saver.

Russ Tiffany: Business park - would it bring more revenue?

Matt: Any new construction would benefit.

Mayor: We try to market it. And there is a developer that is interested in more than just Wayne's Market.

Ellen: 4-5 teacher cuts?

Diana: 1 possible retirement only so definitely some cuts.

Heather: We should really pull together our communities and discuss various options for dealing with this fiscal challenge. Even if we don’t end up sharing services we can at least discuss what has been proven to be effective money savers in other districts and in the very least, we are all extending an olive branch to one other’s communities and hoping helping to diffuse the tensions among districts. Should we invite other concerned community leaders from other districts to join in the discussions?

Diana: That may be a good idea.

Molly: That may be something the Upstate institute may be able to coordinate.

Campbell's Law

I'd like this blog to be a repository of possibly-helpful ideas for Hamilton Central's short-term, medium-term, and long-term options... and of course at the moment it's going to focus on the 2014-15 Budget Process and even on the next Upcoming Public Event:

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Please Come To The 5:30PM Jan 29th High School Library Meeting

Bring Ideas

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On the other hand, I do want to go back to putting up posts about interesting articles/books/TED talks that I think are relevant, even if indirectly. This morning I see a Wired Magazine article about the methods by which we evaluate options, specifically about limitations on the value of the sort of quantitative methods that geeks like me get involved with implementing, at Why Quants Don’t Know Everything

all these new systems—metrics, algo­rithms, automated decisionmaking processes—result in humans gaming the system in rational but often unpredictable ways. Sociologist Donald T. Campbell noted this dynamic back in the ’70s, when he articulated what’s come to be known as Campbell’s law: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making,” he wrote, “the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”
On a managerial level, once the quants come into an industry and disrupt it, they often don’t know when to stop. ...As soon as managers pick a numerical metric as a way to measure whether they’re achieving their desired outcome, everybody starts maximizing that metric rather than doing the rest of their job—just as Campbell’s law predicts.
Policing is a good example, as explained by Harvard sociologist Peter Moskos in his book Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District. Most cops have a pretty good idea of what they should be doing, if their goal is public safety: reducing crime, locking up kingpins, confiscating drugs. It involves foot patrols, deep investigations, and building good relations with the community. But under statistically driven regimes, individual officers have almost no incentive to actually do that stuff. Instead, they’re all too often judged on results—specifically, arrests. ...
The same goes for the rise of “teaching to the test” in public schools, or the perverse incentives placed on snowplow operators, who, paid by the quantity of snow cleared, might simply ignore patches of lethal black ice. Even with the 2012 Obama campaign, it became hard to learn about the candidate’s positions by visiting his website, because it was so optimized for maximizing donations—an easy and obvious numerical target—that all other functions fell by the wayside.

At best, your measurements make a model: as George Box put it, all models are wrong, but some are useful. And as he added: "Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a 'correct' one by excessive elaboration. On the contrary... overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity." A little quantification, a little measurement, can be very helpful; more is often worse. (The world would be easier for me to deal with if this weren't so.)


Or then again, maybe not.

2014-15 Budget Process --- Join In!

As the Budget Calendar mentioned, our January 21 BoE meeting (which will supposedly be on Youtube eventually (see below) was largely about the budget, starting with the NYS proposed aid in the 2014-15 EXECUTIVE BUDGET PROPOSAL which had just come out a couple of hours before. It was not happy reading; Aaron commented that he had expected our Gap Elimination Adjustment to come down fairly substantially which would have led to a relatively straightforward budget process. Instead, it came down by 6%, remaining still above $500K, leaving us with a back-of-the-envelope $250K deficit. It's a big problem for many schools... as North Country Public Radio quoted What does Cuomo's budget mean for schools in the North Country?

"...it seems odd that the governor touts increasing aid to education on the one hand and fails to say that he’s taking it out of the pockets of educators with the other hand"

Of course it's not just the GEA; our insurance costs jumped sharply, more than in quite some time; apparently this is a consequence of Obamacare. (It's a surprise to me; I had thought NY to be one of the very few states where our existing mandates would make the ACA look good, except for the "narrow networks" phenomenon which may provide nasty surprises for New Yorkers who spend time in other states and expect to have non-emergency care while they're away.)

And there are mandates for equipment for simultaneous test-taking, and there's an individual property which was reassessed a couple of years ago from $1.3M to $1.7M and the appeal is almost certainly going to result in a settlement back down to $1.2M with our school on the hook for some excess taxes. Ouch.

The applicable tax cap is Whichever Is Less of 2% and the official CPI which is 1.46%, plus a local growth factor of almost exactly 1%, so income is not rising to match outgo unless we vote to override the tax cap.So...

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Please Come To The 5:30PM Jan 29th High School Library Meeting

Bring Ideas

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Ideas? Of course there is always sharing; the actual merger plan did not save money (long-run) because the diseconomy of scale from added transportation cancelled the economy of scale from cutting staff, but sharing doesn't have to involve large-scale transportation costs. Diana discussed doing more (mainly administrative) sharing among the 4 local schools through BOCES, and we can do more athletic sharing (girls' basketball with Madison). This will not save a lot, but every little bit helps.

Shared Admin can go pretty far, there is such a thing as a Shared Superintendent possibility; it's not obvious that this is applicable to our situation. In general, if we consult the New York State Professional Staffing Ratios" (large PDF) (we're on page 244), we might find that some other small schools do it with reduced staff and maybe we can do what they do...or maybe we can do New Things; telepresence robotics is taking off, after all, and getting lots cheaper than being there.

Smart Schools Equipment for telepresence, for distance learning (below), and to satisfy the mandate Diana mentioned for simultaneous test-taking is not just getting cheaper: it may be covered by the "smart schools allocation" at the bottom of the "BUDGET PROPOSAL", which for HCS is $409,770. It's likely that the "allocation" is intended to encourage long-term shift towards options like the Khan Academy, or simply lessons like our own Youtube channel to be used locally or shared. In the long run that's important, but it's possible that some replacement of people cost with machine cost will actually be feasible even in the fairly short term. (It's also possible that the geek writing this is overly optimistic.)

Natural Gas was discussed; my understanding of Diana's remarks is that it will save each year but that this coming year the savings is roughly cancelled by the installation cost. Ken Bausch points out by email that if if that understanding is correct, then it's a normal capital cost which should be funded by a bond issue, just as we do to amortize bus cost; in fact it's far more obvious in the case of the one-time-only natural gas cost. If indeed that's how it goes, and if the link above was correct in projecting $160,000/year savings, then we're more than halfway home right there. If.

Distance Learning is a current topic for Madison; Ferdinand sends a link to MCS bringing new instruction via distance learning through BOCES and in the long run this may be a major winner, but probably not a big issue for the next few budgets. Well, it might be.

Alumni/Community Fundraising was discussed; Amy Hurta as Treasurer reported that she had learned the day before that the Sports Boosters, like the Emerald Foundation, is in fact a tax-exempt 401(c)3 organization listed with the IRS, "and always has been." Send Money! Andrew Coddington says the Emerald Foundation is always looking for alumni donations and tries to keep an alumni list, so Send Names/Addresses! (And Money!) And there's also HCS alumni site which isn't very active--but links to a facebook page.

Sponsorship Stephanie McClintick (via email) brings up the possibility of local company sponsorship of teams and other activities, which is a common development elsewhere; the Albany Times-Union reported a year ago on Schools look to sponsors to help pay for programs - Times Union

Cuts force districts to find alternative funding

which is certainly a familiar story; from this past fall we can add This student planner brought to you by… | The New York World

New York City middle and high school students will be receiving free planners next school year courtesy of corporate sponsors, under a new city Department of Education plan.

There is an organization to support this kind of thing: Sponsorship and Advertising | School Administrators Association of New York State

The Corporate Sponsorship Program helps SAANYS to achieve its mission of continuing to provide programs and services to the school leaders of New York State - leading to greater opportunities for the students within their care. Participating in the program provides companies with many opportunities to interact with school leaders from all over the state.

Of course, there can be problems, and caution is advised; from Utah we hear High school sponsorship contracts raise concerns, but also benefit programs | Deseret News

In this piece, Amy Donaldson examines the regulatory environment surrounding these deals and how local coaches have gotten into legal trouble with respect to such contracts.

It could happen here.

Foreign Students I've written before about the possibility of tuition-paying international students and about some of the reasons why HCS might appeal to some. Astrid brought this up at the meeting and Diana replied that HCS did indeed go through the "accreditation" process with Homeland Security so we are "SEVIS-certified"; indeed we are on page 108 of last June's official list at DHS and we can accept foreign students with "F" visas, although not "M" visas. See SEVP Certification Basics and maybe Everything you need to know about Foreign Students (F-1) studying in Public Schools

• Secondary school attendance is limited to twelve months.
• F-1 secondary school students are required to pay the school the full cost of education by repaying the school system for the full, unsubsidized, per capita cost of providing the education to him or her.
• F-1 students are prohibited from attending public elementary schools or publicly-funded adult education programs.

And Clinton High School went through this in 2004 but may have dropped it, their website doesn't mention it. The idea went nowhere at HCS, beyond conversations with a company which actually offered to provide students and pay $2,000/year to HCS for their education. Not a good offer, in fact much less than is required by the second requirement above. Is the idea hopeless? I don't think so, not at all. Consider the town of Millinocket, Maine, reported in Millinocket using China program money to keep schools going in 2014 — Bangor Daily News...

Seven Chinese students attended Stearns this year, each paying about $24,000 tuition. ...
Millinocket is among several Maine municipalities hoping to offset shrinking school revenues with Chinese students but had recruiting difficulties. An informal poll of state public high schools’ Chinese student enrollments taken in February showed the most students, 12, at Orono High School. Some private schools had close to 100.

What does Millinocket have that we don't? Connections with Chinese high schools, apparently. Hmm... but we do have potential connections through Colgate faculty/students/admin, including the China Study Group. USA Today reported last July on U.S. summer camps increasingly popular overseas

U.S. summer camps are increasingly popular in countries such as China, where rising middle class can send their children to experience American life -- and possibly set the stage for going to college in the USA

The article featured Colgate rather prominently. At the wrong level for our purposes, but still -- it's worth exploring. Do we have such connections? (Carolyn?) Do we have people, preferably parents of current HCS students, who'd be hosts? (Astrid?) Of course this doesn't have to be China, but China is prominent in the F-1 high-school student visa discussions.

That's all I can think of right now. Diana wanted to emphasize that ideas need to be considered in the context of our layers of regulations, mandates, subsidies... When Ferdinand talked about transportation costs, working with local transport to save some of the $90,000/year we give to BOCES, she replied that transportation is among our highest aid-ratio costs so that much of the money we give BOCES comes back to us, and even if we found a cheaper transportation solution it's likely that the budget cost would be higher. We can't count on specific aid ratios for long-term planning, but for right now, let's talk about the next few years' budgets, with focus on next year.

Update: I didn't mention Activism, or at least Letter-Writing; note that the state's disappointing Budget Proposal is not a Final Budget. There will be a post about this, Reasonably Soon Now.

Update2:The BoE meeting is now a (long) video at ▶ Hamilton CSD BOE Meeting 1.21.14

...apologies, the next one will have better sound.

Below is the order [of] events and the times in which each Agenda Item appears:
0-10min: Items 1.0-3.6, Call to order, Preliminary Action, Consent Agenda (Business Operations)
10-11 min: Item 4, Consent Agenda (Old Business)
11-17 min: Item 5, Community Participation Part 1
17-21 min: Items 6-6.4, New Business
21-35 min: Item 6.5, Budget Sports
35-55 min: Item 7, Information and Correspondence
55-1:41 min: Item 8, Community Participation Part 2.

Hooray for open government!

Update 3 Yes, the sound is terrible. If you have LOTS of energy then

• (a) download the video from youtube, lots of e.g. Firefox extensions for that;
• (b) split off the sound track, probably in iMovie or whatever basic video handler you have;
• (c) download Audacity (free) from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
• (d) follow, e.g. http://www.podtopia.net/gettingstarted/removenoise.shtml

No problem. Well, umm, assuming you have several hours...make it a day, this is a long video and there will probably be synchronization issues when you put it back together so you may have to do it one clip at a time. And the result will not be perfect. No, I'm not gonna try, but I'll post the result if somebody else does.