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If a budget approved by the Lansing Board Of Education (BOE) is approved by taxpayers next month, property owners can expect to pay about $104 more per $100,000 of their homes when the tax bills come later this summer.  The $24,377,906 budget involves cuts, including five and a fraction teacher positions, still raising the tax levy by 1.37% and the tax rate by an estimated 5.91% to $18.64 per $1,000 of property value.

"We put together what we think is the best snapshot right now of what our spending will be for next year and how we can cover the costs," said Superintendent Stephen Grimm.  "We're not just thinking about this year, but next year's budget gap should be large as well.  Knowing that anything we cover with reserves this year is program that will be threatened next year."

Business Administrator Mary June King showed the board three alternative proposals for meeting the $24.4 million budget.  With an anticipated 9.44% drop in state aid next year, a 47.06% drop in federal aid, and a drop in Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) revenue between 5.7% and 13.25% (depending on the amount of the tax levy, the proposals illustrated how different uses of reserves and appropriations would impact the levy. 

The first summary showed a 46.17% drop in miscellaneous revenue that would result in a 14.09% rise in the tax levy.  A second summary proposed using $886,773 of reserve monies to offset the loss of state aid, resulting in an 8.19% rise in the levy.  A third proposed throwing another $484,227, largely funded by monies not spent this year to bring the rise in the levy down to 4.97%.

Grimm said that spending the reserves now would buy the district time to develop a plan for delivering a high quality education more economically.  But he noted that usning reserves is like living off of your savings account: once you spend it, it is gone.

"We can only hope that the economic picture improves globally, nationally, in the state and in this area so that we're not faced with these exterior threats of revenue loss," he said. 

Over the past several weeks school and union officials have been at odds over cuts in personnel.  While Grimm and his team have been faced with a budget gap that required looking carefully at the biggest cost to the district -- personnel, union officials lobbied hard to reduce teacher cuts.  That provoked a reaction from school board member Richard Thaler.

Thaler noted he was a board member years ago, and agreed to run for his current term because taxpayers who were distressed by school spending asked him to run.  Thaler said that in his first term he felt constrained to resign when two teachers who didn't like his contract negotiation stance took it out on his daughters who were students at the time.  He said he would resign again if teachers let the union speak for them instead of speaking for themselves.

"People with children in the school here are exemplary," Thaler said.  "All you have to do is look at the accomplishments of these students.  The problem I have is that when the union negotiates they don't negotiate from the standpoint of what is best for the Town of Lansing.  They do it based upon what is best for the union."


Other proposed personnel cuts include support and administrative positions.  Notably the Athletic Director/Assistant Principal position and Director of Technology positions are on the chopping block.  Officials propose to fill the former with a percent of a physical education teacher's time and BOCES technical support services.  Supplies and services such as consolidated and eliminated bus runs are also on the cut list.

Board member David Dittman warned that not cutting more deeply now will result in more severe cutting later.

"This year we've picked at the fringes," he said.  "If this fiscal crisis continues within the state, next year we're going to be faced with (cuts of) and other $1.3 million.  I don't think we should be waiting until budget season to address that.  We should sit down systematically right after this process is finished.  We bought a little time, and we need to look at the way we deliver education in Lansing."

The budget was approved unanimously.  But some residents expressed doubts, saying the proposed cuts may not be enough.  If it doesn't pass the BOE will have one more chance to put forth a budget that taxpayers will accept.  If that budget also fails a state mandated contingency budget that the state has set at a 0% rise this year will be implemented.

Grimm was hopeful that taxpayers will agree to the proposed budget, noting that it is already close to the 0% rise, at 1.81% for the total budget from this year to next.  He noted that if you consider tax rate drops implemented over the past couple of years, the average rise including that proposed this summer is reasonable.  The community will find that out on May 18th when voters say yea or nay.

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