Budget presentation goes high-tech

Administrators meet to begin sorting

out budget priorities for next year
By:Krzysztof Scibiorski
   It wasn’t a setting for a science fiction movie, but the disembodied voice of Technology Supervisor Mike Skara could be heard late into the night at the Alexander Batcho Intermediate School Media Center last week.
   Mr. Skara was making a presentation to the Board of Education at the first of a series of meetings to compile the district’s needs for the 2002-03 school year and begin crafting the school budget.
   Mr. Skara, who was not in attendance, let the computer do his talking, with his recorded voice accompanying the presentation to the public’s and the board’s amusement.
   The meeting gave board members, administrators and residents a chance to start thinking about the necessary balancing of all of the requests presented by principals and department heads, as they presented their "wish lists" for next year.
   Some of the most imposing items presented included the need for two additional classrooms at Roosevelt School, a new, 20-computer lab at the high school, two additional Language Arts/reading teaching positions at the Alexander Batcho Intermediate School and a $35,000 Dodge truck for the maintenance department.
   The heads of each school, along with their maintenance and special education colleagues, detailed their plans for the next year with slide show presentations that showed their proposed changes and additions to the current year’s budgets.
   Terrance Fitzpatrick, the high school principal, also asked the board to consider adding a full-time in-school suspension administrator and a uniformed security guard to the school’s payroll.
   "Just because something was mentioned tonight, doesn’t mean it will be included in the budget," Richard Reilly, the district’s business administrator, said last week. "We’ll be looking at the requests very carefully."
   Gary Courtelyou, one of the parents in attendance at the meeting, was impressed with the proceedings.
   "This never happened here before," he said of the detailed presentations. "In the past the principals just gave their budget amounts. This is a great change."
   Mr. Reilly refused to comment on the shape of next year’s budget, citing the delay in the state’s budgetary process, as the state tries to determine how much aid it may be able to provide to municipalities.