June 7, 2020: Budget proposal...

From: budget wcsd <budget@wcsdny.org>
Date: Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 9:55 AM
Subject: Re: Budget proposal
To: Kim Ashcraft <kim.ashcraft1@gmail.com>



Good morning  thank you for your email
 
Summer school will be in session in the summer of 2020 in the virtual format.  There is still an associated cost for this work in salaries and supplies.  There was a reduction  made in Transportation's budget for diesel/gasoline related to virtual summer school for 2020-2021.  
 
Even with the district being closed to students in the classroom in 2019-2020 there are still costs as essential work is being completed and the buildings are closed yet operational.  Custodians have been reporting to work every day for just this reason. The District has been feeding students free breakfast and lunch in a grab and go process since the middle of March 2020 5 days a week.  Virtual school has been in session and staff are being paid.  The budget vote by absentee as mandated  by NYS has been a large and unexpected expense as WCSD has almost 50,000 taxpayers. The Transportation department has been working on routeing for the 2020-2021 school year.  12 month driver/cleaners are cleaning in the buildings as well .  The Central Office staff have continued to be operational as well.  This is all essential work and must continue.  There have been increased costs related to cleaning supplies and equipment as well as the cost of protective supplies (ie: gloves, masks etc).  Any potential savings is yet to be finalized as the school year does not end until 6/30/2020.   The savings cannot be applied to 2020-2021's budget as it is not yet defined and confirmed.  
 
As for the school vehicle proposition - yes the referendum was approved by the voters in May 2019.  The District has a fleet of over 250 vehicles.  We are trying to keep to a 10 year replacement plan for these vehicles.  The vehicles listed in the presentation are what we are looking to replace.  Annually we prepare a cost benefit analysis to see which vehicles should be replaced.  Not all with higher mileage need to be replaced as their maintenance costs have been lower than some others for example.  As for federal credit after 250,000 miles I have never heard of that but will definitely look in to.  The District has taken advantage of credits with regard to emission systems etc in the past.
 
I hope this helps to answer some question and provide you with information to make an informed decision.  Please feel free to reach out with additional questions.
 
Thank you
Kristen Crandall
 

 

On Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 9:18 AM Kim Ashcraft <kim.ashcraft1@gmail.com> wrote:
Good Morning,
 
I am looking at the budget proposal for voting on Tuesday, which I only got 6/6/2020. Regarding proposition 1.   I have some questions;  since there is no summer school program this year how was the 83k allocated spent?  How was the money for janitorial services , after school programs, lunches, diesel gas on school bus spent, etc. since schools have been closed since March?
 
Proposition 2 is about the school busses.  I cannot find on line if this was passed last year.  If it was and we replaced the vehicles, why do we need to replace more school buses? It was proposed to replace 17 and the ave school bus can last 250k miles.   According to the website we had 2 with 217k miles, 7 with 194k,  9 with 149k.   So we should now only have 1 with 149k,  and the next 15 only have 137k.  This means we have at least 14 buses that have not reached the 250k mark. As I have researched buses that hit the 250k  are eligible for federal assistance.  
 
Thank you in advance for your assistance so I can be an informed voter. 
 
Sincerely, 
Kim Ashcraft.