White Plains Seeks Your Input on the School Budget

If White Plains wishes to stay within the 2 percent property tax cap, then it must close a $1 million gap in the 2012-13 school district budget.

According to the district’s Jan. 11 budget presentation, the cap would put the district’s budget at $189.2 million—the budget would otherwise be $190.2 million.

The cap prevents the property tax levy from being raised by more than two percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. A district can override the cap if 60 percent of voters approve it. According to The Daily White Plains, the cap will not include capital project debt, and pension costs increases greater than 2 percent from cap calculations.

The can either put out a budget, under or at the tax cap, to a vote on May 15—requiring 50 percent, plus one or more of the vote.

Or it can propose a budget that levies the tax before exemptions, which would be above the tax levy and requires a “super majority” or 60 percent of the vote. If those budgets do not pass, the district can either put the same budget to vote; revise the budget for residents to vote for on June 19; or adopt a contingency budget that has a zero percent tax levy increase.

If both votes to not pass, the district would pass the zero percent levy increase budget, which would remove non-contingent expenses.

According to The White Plains Examiner, “Clouet said that in a conference call with superintendents in the Sound Shore, none of them were considering overriding the cap. After the meeting, he said it was key to keep the public informed and be as transparent as possible.”

Clouet said that the district has been making cuts for the last three years to make up for mandated and increasing costs while reasonably increasing taxes. The district has also cut 10 percent of its staff in recently years, which would makes further cuts in that department difficult.

The Daily White Plains reports that one parent said the district shouldn’t assume voters wouldn’t approve a proposal that kept the $1 million in the budget. Other parents who attended the Jan. 11 budget forum expressed concerned over cuts to sports, music, and art, as well as making cuts to language courses with low enrollment, reworking/consolidating buses and reducing temperatures in the district to save money, according to The Daily White Plains.

The school district wants your input on:

• How and where they can save money, and what district offerings should be prioritized
• What are the programs and services most important to maintain for the students of the White Plains School District?
• What programs and/or services should the district reduce or eliminate?
• What are some other or “out of the box” ideas that can generate cost saving?
• With limited revenue, what can the district do without?
• What areas of personnel (staffing) can be reduce or eliminated?
• In what areas can class size be increased?

Leave your answers in the comments and attend the second budget forum on Jan. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at  The community response forums will be held on March 14 at and March 21 at .

For more information visit the 2012-13 school budget, see the district’s website: www.whiteplainspublicschools.org/budget.

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