Daily Gazette, Tuesday, March 22, 2005 School board examines equipment costs BY VICTORIA R. SPAGNOLI Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Victoria R. Spagnoli at 395-3110 or vspagnoli@dailygazette.net. The preliminary tax increase for property owners in the Scotia-Glenville School District is projected at about 8.5 percent but does not include a potential increase for an equipment proposition the Board of Education is considering. On Monday night, the board spent an hour discussing Superintendent Michael Marcelle’s $295,000 proposed equipment proposition. It would allow the district to buy equipment for the fine arts department, specifically music instruments, athletic equipment and computer technology. The computer equipment makes up nearly $200,000 of the proposition. The preliminary 2005-06 budget is slightly more than $40 million. The board had several options, including offering the proposition as an additional tax increase or bonding for the equipment purchases. Early in the discussion, the majority of the board felt the computer technology should be taken out of the proposition and added back into the budget. Marcelle said for that to occur some significant cuts to programs would have to be made. Adding the computer equipment back into the budget would raise the tax increase by nearly another percentage point. Board member John Carpenter agreed. "I don’t know how you are going to put it into the budget," he said. "It’s going to be very difficult to keep the status quo, let alone adding anything to Mike’s preliminary budget. That’s my gut feeling." Some board members weren’t sure that asking the residents to pay an additional tax increase above an 8.5 increase wouldn’t fly at the polls. "We can ask, I’m just not sure it’s going to go," said Kurt Ahnert. But Karen Bradley said the district needs to stop deferring necessary purchases. The computer technology "is an area that I don’t think we can let go," she said. Many things have been put off and are now catching up with the district, she explained. But, "how much the community can tolerate, I just don’t know," Bradley said, adding however that in some areas of the budget the board is just going to have to "bite the bullet" and do something. The board is expected to make a decision on the proposition at its next meeting on March 28. The budget vote will be May 17. The board Monday also held it’s first community budget forum. Only four people spoke. Mark Stockman of Scotia said the board needs to stop borrowing for the purchase of buses; would like to see them negotiate more aggressively with the teacher’s union in an effort to keep personnel costs down; and wants the district to create a fund for the purchase of equipment.