Superintendent Reveals Part I of the Instructional Budget

White Plains Schools, and school districts across New York, will be challenged for another year to find ways to offer quality education while presenting a fiscally prudent budget—this time while minding a 2 percent tax cap.

The first part of the proposed instructional budget totals $19,088,715—an increase of $666,965—which represents about 18 percent of the $103,271,960 preliminary total 2012-13 budget. The total proposed budget represents a 1.95 percent increase over last year’s budget.

• The district’s preliminary curriculum development and supervision budget will increase by $129,701, to $1,883,751, and includes increases in staffing for English Language Arts, as well as contractual increases for Project Lead the Way, AVID Center, Great Book Training and other programs.

• The schools supervision budget—which includes raises for principals, assistant principals, and clerical support—is going up $98,022 and also includes BOCES building administration support and other items.

• Research, Planning and Evaluation will go up $53,478, to $215,709 and includes grant writing, testing and data collection, mandated state and federal reporting, a half time grant writer position, test scoring and data analysis services.

• The staff development, school library media, summer school budget will also see increases—while the instructional technology budget will rise to $3,014,454, a $168,171 increase. This increase includes computer technology for all students, teachers and instructional staff, as well as white board technology, Internet access, instructional software instead of textbooks, and repair costs.

• The pupil services attendance budget goes up $14,701 and includes an investigation to identify students who attend White Plains Schools, but don’t live in the school district. The investigation would be conducted every two to three months

• The budget for interscholastic sports will also go up by $103,132 to $898,76,. Interscholastic sports include 59 teams for students to participate in and holds about almost 1,000 athletic events each year. This year’s budget includes increase in staff to support the athletic field use and a rise in contractual costs for event expenses.

Click here to view budget documents, for more information on the budget planning schedule and to comment and what you would like to see in this year’s budget.

Like us on  Facebook  (facebook.com/WhitePlainsPatch) and follow us on  Twitter (twitter.com/WhtPlainsPatch)