Miller Place School Budget – MPTA Please Help Us

The proposed budget presented by Miller Place UFSD Superintendent Susan Hodun contains over $2,000,000 in cuts to programs, athletics, courses, some staff, and more than 22 teachers. As BOE member Brian Neyland keeps reminding us, we should be able to find this money in a budget of over $65,000,000.

The great unknown in the final budget is the value of the teachers (MPTA) contract. It is unknown because teacher raises are tied to the consumer price index (CPI) and that value is variable. The final number to be used will not be known until July 2012 – AFTER we vote on the budget.

As I have stated publicly several times and again March 7, the three teachers my 2nd grade son has had are among the three best educators I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. There seems to be a misconception that those of us asking MPTA to reopen their contract are bad-mouthing teachers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We need to SAVE our 22 teachers and other staff who will lose their jobs with this proposed budget. We also need to SAVE our programs, sports, and courses.

To save everything we need to find $2.2 million. To save the co-curricular and sports cuts only we need to find $262,475. The numbers in this blog post below show how easy it would be to save the $262,475 and how there is one way to save all programs, all courses, all sports, and all jobs.

Before getting into the numbers, a little history is required. Last year, the Administration and BOE approved the MPTA contract extension that included a raise of 1.5% or CPI – WHICHEVER IS HIGHER. (The CPI as of February was 2.8%.) Last year’s BOE approved this fiscally uncertain contract by a vote of 3-1-1.

Our current BOE President John Magnani voted YES, our current BOE VP Ann O’Brien voted YES, while current BOE member Michael Unger voted NO because he knew that it was dangerous to tie a major portion of the school contract to a number that was variable and rising. The other yes vote came from Angela Guido (no longer on the Board) and James Moran (no longer on the Board) abstained. It should be noted that two of our current BOE members (Brian Neyland and Doug Ports) were not BOE members for this vote. Having said that, during Meet the Candidates Night last year, Brian Neyland stated he would have voted NO to tying the budget to the rising CPI and Doug Ports said he would have voted YES. I suspect Doug Ports would answer differently if asked that question today now that he sees the awful fiscal situation our school district is in.

Last week, I sent three questions to the BOE that were posted on the Budget FAQ web page. I encourage all residents to take advantage of this new resource and I thank BOE members Mike Unger and Brian Neyland for making this happen. Based on the response, it appears that the MPTA salary budget line is about $24,000,000 of the $35,000,000 in the budget’s instructional expenses. At the March 7 BOE Meeting, I asked Dept. Superintendent Marianne Higuera if $24,000,000 was ballpark and she agreed. Reductions in salary also save an additional 20% (ballpark) due to less FICA, retirement, etc. That 20% was factored into the values appearing below.

The current proposed budget was calculated using CPI = 3.5% for teacher raises. If raises are less than 3.5% there will be savings. (Note: All teachers not at their terminal step will get a step increase which is a raise even if there were no approved contract. Teachers at steps 1-17 receive a 3.5% step increase while teachers between 18-24 receive 1.9%. The raises discussed here are the amount ABOVE the automatic step increases.)

I have listed the potential savings under various scenarios. After seeing each of these values, go to the Budget Executive Summary to see what could be saved with that “found money”.

Scenario

Savings

July CPI = 2.8%

$170,000

Remove CPI, MPTA agrees to 1.5% raise

$486,000

MPTA agrees to 1% raise

$729,000

MPTA takes step raise only

$1,020,600

All employees take pay freeze. No raises, no step.

$2,324,000

A district-wide pay freeze saves all programs, all sports, all courses, and all teachers and other staff that would otherwise lose their jobs.

Even if the MPTA agrees to a raise of 1.5% which is a very good raise considering most districts had freezes or much lower raises, the $486,000 would save all co-curricular programs that were cut, all cuts to sports, and all cuts to the music program and staff. (This is just one example – there are many others that could be “saved” with $486,000.)

For the record, I am a college professor and my current contract has a 0% raise this year and a 0% raise next year. I do get a 2.5% step increase. In the past I have had contracts with several zeroes, givebacks, and lag payroll where I gave up two weeks pay to be paid at a later date at least five years away.

There has been discussion of the “concession” made by MPTA members last year. That concession was a one-time $2,750 give-back per member. It should be noted that members making $78,000 or more still gained more than $2,750 with their step increase this year even in a no-contract scenario. After one more year, all members make more in step increases than the $2,750 concession. The raise that the MPTA secured will compound over the years so the $2,750 was a very minor concession to gain a very large reward.

I was very disappointed in comments made by VP Ann O’Brien on March 7. She tried to blame the problem on the $2,000,000 in state aid cuts. How soon she forgets that last year she voted YES to a contract that was tied to a rising CPI and that our own district attorney advised was problematic. Last year she also should have expected, as we all did, that cuts in state aid were coming. She also suggested that residents of Miller Place UFSD consider piercing the tax cap to save the budget. I see no way that 60% of our residents would agree to approve another large tax increase. I will vote NO to piercing the cap if that budget is presented. I sincerely doubt that this BOE will entertain that notion.

Please feel free to post your comments here but let us all remain professional and courteous. We are all in this together. If somebody has more accurate numbers please send them to me and I will update.

The next CPI will be issued on Friday April 13, 2012.

I am NOT advocating for ANY of the proposed solutions I have mentioned in this blog post. This post is my way to show how changes to the MPTA Memorandum of Agreement approved last year could result in badly need savings. I am unequivocally opposed to tying the salary increases to the CPI! It is fiscally irresponsible to tie a variable percentage increase to a major budget item, especially if that value is well above any number other districts were settling for last year.