Williamsville District budget forum draws ideas from residents
by JESSICA L. FINCH Associate Editor

Amherst resident Roger LeGoff offered some ideas to the Williamsville Central School District regarding its budget development.

At the forum held on March 11, he sought answers to many major budget questions - including transportation and health insurance.

"How do you determine the number of buses required?" he asked, adding that he wanted to know the total number of students riding the buses.

LeGoff was told that busing has to be provided to students living within the boundaries and also for students who attend private schools, approximately 15,000. A transportation price tag is estimated at $8.13 million for 2008-09.

The number of parents who drive their children to school and if there could be a cost savings in busing, has been brought up in the past.

With the designated start times at the schools, it would be difficult to adjust the fleet size at this time, school officials said.

LeGoff also recommended the district consider partnering with Sweet Home and Amherst school districts to save money on health insurance. His idea wasn't dismissed as impossible, but it couldn't be accomplished during this budget process.

A Huntington Court resident also spoke, questioning the need for $178,000 to send athletes and scholars to state competition.

He said that he always felt, when things get tough, you tighten your budget, not increase it.

Since presenting the preliminary budget in February, some good news has been announced.

"We are trying to move the spending plan down a bit," Superintendent Howard Smith said.

The first draft of the budget called for a spending increase of 4.69 percent and a 3 percent tax rate increase. The total preliminary budget is $152 million.

"Since then, we got some new information, without spending changes. Fifteen teacher retirements were announced, a savings of more than $200,000," he said, adding that an initial report of reducing eight teaching positions might be only five to six, due to the class schedules made by students.

Also, Erie 1 BOCES aid is expected to be reinstated, a total of $700,000 for Williamsville.

Between those two changes, the tax levy would decrease $900,000, possibly changing the spending increase to 3.3 percent from the initial 4.69.

Budget aside, the tax rate will also depend on the assessment rate, which is estimated to affect the tax rate from 0.5 to 2.5 percent. Because the town doesn't know its exact assessment rate the School District can't calculate the estimated tax rate.

Many board members said they wanted the rate to be as close to a zero percent increase as possible.

"We really need to strive for no increase in the tax rate, I think the community expects that," Board Member Ronald Shubert said.

In 2002-03 the tax rate was $19.41 per $1,000 and in 2007-08 it was $19.65. In the past six years, the tax rate changes ranged from increasing 3.44 percent to decreasing 2.36 percent on a given year.

The Williamsville Board of Education will hold a public work session on the preliminary 2008-09 budget at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 25 in the district office board room, 105 Casey Road, East Amherst.

The work session is open to the public, but there is no public expression time. The final budget is expected to be adopted on April 8.

In other matters:

• The board named Jeffrey Jachlewski as assistant principal of Heim Middle School, effective April 21. He was most recently the assistant principal at Depew Middle School; prior to that, he was a teacher in the Tonawanda City School District.

• The Williamsville Central School District Web site has been selected as one of the top 10 public school Web sites in the nation by "WanttoTeach.com," a national job search site for the education field.