It’s Budget Season Again in Miller Place

On Wednesday, February 27 the new budget season gets underway in Miller Place. The BOE meeting will be held at MP High School at 7:30 and will feature Budget Workshop #1- Executive Summary: Tax Cap, Revenues.

If you wish to voice your concerns or just want to be in the loop so you know where your tax dollars are going, please mark your calendars with the following: (Also online here)

I am very confident that this year’s process will be a fairly smooth one and that Miller Place will be the envy of neighboring districts as we move into the future. MP will NOT have some of the budget issues of our neighboring districts because this BOE did not kick the can down the road.

Reasons to be hopeful:

1. The Miller Place Teachers Association (MPTA) has a contract. Last year, raises were tied to an unknown CPI value which essentially held the budget hostage to an unknown. Thank you to the MPTA for working with this BOE and Central Office to get this large puzzle piece into place and providing us with known values for the next four years.
2. We have two financial experts on the BOE with Michael Unger and Bryan Neyland. These two gentleman deal with budgets and finances every day in their day jobs so it is no surprise they have been able to slow the runaway train. All decisions made today consider the 3 to 5 year impacts to ensure financial sustainability today and tomorrow.
3. Doug Ports has proven to be a stellar BOE President. Meetings with Doug Ports at the helm have featured a positive atmosphere, efficiency, clear communications, and results. I also credit Doug for forging an alliance between all five BOE members. In the past we saw public dissent between members which is not apparent now. (I think it is perfectly reasonable for BOE members to disagree but arrow-slinging should not be public.)
4. Hiring Dr. Marianne Higuera has proven to be an excellent decision. Dr. Higuera has been working very closely with the BOE since this summer so she fully understands what this BOE wishes to see in her budget. Although the first budget we see is technically her budget, I fully expect it will be greeted positively by this BOE because of these many hours of collaboration. Dr. Higuera has been the district budget guru for years so we now have financial experts on both sides of the table who understand the math and the language of budget management.
5. The Budget Process Committee featured representatives from a variety of diverse stakeholders so many voices were heard. The Committee was comprised of members from the community (including myself), BOE, Central Office, MP Teachers Association, Administration, clerical, maintenance, special education, PTO, Arts, Athletics, among others. We met several times over the winter to discuss effective ways to communicate the budget process. 

We are fortunate to be avoiding the pending fiscal crises that many districts will be facing this year and next.   I look forward to seeing you all at these important meetings and I will continue to offer my perspective on this process.