Seaford School Board Toils With Difficult Budget Decisions

With budget season in full swing, officials in the Seaford District are analyzing departmental budgets, cost benefit and the effective outcome of the overall budget to be voted on in May.

At the Seaford Board of Education workshop meeting on Wednesday evening, trustees examined the drawbacks and potential advantages of the funding situation of two specific areas – athletics and technology. The board invited the directors of the respective departments to come to this workshop to answer specific questions.

As the district is facing serious budget shortfalls, including a $1.6 million state aid cut coming from Governor Cuomo and $2.2 million of increased operating costs, they are investigating alternatives to close the budget gap so that taxes don’t have to be raised an overwhelming amount.

Seaford Athletic Director Tom Condon emphasized how Seaford’s sports programs have been excelling extensively within the past several years – sending many teams to win their respective conferences and county championships. The main issues that are applicable to the athletic budget include reassessing supervisors and possibly cutting down on uniforms costs, tournament fees, transportation and BOCES charges.

“There is a significant financial commitment that a district and community makes in support of their athletic program interscholastically,” said Seaford Superintendent Brian Conboy.

The approximate budget for the district athletic department for the upcoming school year is $560,000 and is distributed throughout all the schools and sports. Prospective budgets “waves” would include $39,000 of cuts in the first wave, an additional $50,000 cut in the second part and another $150,000 taken away in the third wave, which would effectively eliminate middle school sports and winter track.

“Even at stage three, we are looking at a tax increase for the community of 8.5 percent,” said Seaford Board of Education trustee John DelGiudice. “It is a difficult time for us.”

Seaford’s director of technology Fred Kaden talked about the serious need to invest in technology even with the impending budget difficulties. Highlighting the long-term savings the district could achieve with such funding, he identified the fact that this upcoming budget should be about planning for the next several years.

Seaford’s budget for hardware has been steadily decreasing from $161,800 in the 2005 to 2006 school year, to $40,000 in the 2010 to 2011 period, Kaden explained. The overall budget for technology in the district is $799,130.

“Technology is not just about instruction and it is amazing if you think about what Seaford actually does,” Kaden said. “When it comes to technology, Seaford runs security, the boilers, instruction, finances, communications systems – basically there is nothing that technology doesn’t touch.”

Kaden continued by saying that 84 percent of the district computers are over seven years old and that this leads to serious performance issues, which can therefore affect the performance of the district. He proposed three plans for hardware - one replacing computers every five to six years, another every seven to eight and the last replacing the machines every nine to ten years – all of which are just to cover the basics.

“It makes no sense financially to continue this long term because we are not going to be able to do what we have to do,” Conboy said. “Saying that, I know that we are still going to have to make some pretty tough decisions about the amount we can devote.”

The board considered options of leasing computers in order to get the needed technology without making a complete financial commitment for a long period of time.

“We have been talking a lot of how we need to do more with less,” said Seaford Board of Education trustee Michael D. Sapraicone. “I can honestly say that over the last 10 or 15 years we here in Seaford have certainly done more with less.”

 The next Seaford Board of Education workshop meeting discussing the budget is scheduled for March 24 at starting at 7:30 p.m.