For Tuesday’s contested Board of Education elections, many voters turned their attention not to the candidates, but to the proposed budget as well as the proposition to buy two replacement school buses.
With multiple cuts being made to adjust to an 11.23 percent decrease in state aid, this came as no surprise.
“Buses — No,” said Skaneateles resident Joan Callaway after voting in the Waterman Elementary auditorium. “I live on East Lake Road and I see three busses, five kids each in a matter of five minutes. There’s too many!”
She continued, “I’m not in favor of a lot of things.”
While the Board of Education has cut down on costs by eliminating programs as well as staff positions, Callaway suggested a more drastic way to save money that has been talked about statewide — implementing a “user’s” fee for all extracurricular activities.
“That’s the way it was where I came from. Massachusetts, Illinois, Iowa, I can list the states,” Callaway said. “Everything that is not sitting in a classroom, you should have a user’s fee. Why should we pay for your fun stuff?”
George Scherrer, a long-time member of the community, expressed great trust in the Board of Education and did not hesitate to state the nature of his vote.
“I voted yes,” he said. “It’s a great school system, I think — the best in New York.”
Scherrer admitted to knowing just one school board candidate, “And I don’t know if I did the right thing or not, but I only voted for one.”
While some residents saw the purchase of two new buses as a superfluous expense during hard times, Scherrer saw it as a must.
“Oh yeah, we gotta have the buses,” he said. “If we don’t get them this year, they’re going to have to buy four next year. So, keep them up to date.”
Travis and Tyler Blum, twin brothers and former students at Skaneateles, both graduated from Hobart & William Smith University on Sunday May 16 — just in time to cast their votes in person.
While the brothers favored the proposed budget over a contingency budget, they saw certain inconsistencies in the board’s spending decisions.
“Costs have to be cut somewhere, and people have to make sacrifices, but I think … cutting music programs but increasing the athletic budget is just sort of unfair,” Tyler Blum said.
Despite the board’s move to combine once-separate seventh and eighth grade sports teams into single modified teams, the athletic budget increased to $551,662 from $537,043 last year.
The Blums were involved in music and theater during their years at Skaneateles and expressed disappointment in the board’s decision to eliminate one of two drama productions. They said the productions have brought in enough money to justify having two and offer important opportunities to the students.
“Yes, there are overhead costs that go into those things,” Travis Blum said. “But I think in the end, it’s going to end up costing the department more — not necessarily monetarily — but they’re losing more than they’re gaining with these things.”
Travis was confident that between the fall musical and the spring play, the latter would be dropped because “it doesn’t bring in as much money.”
“The strict play is probably what will go and that’s talking about, you know, 40 or 50 students that are missing that involvement for half the year,” he said.
The passionate concerns of voters on Tuesday, as well as the impressive turnout of approximately 1,600, reflected the importance of education to the Skaneateles community. While voters — however willing to compromise — were split on many issues, few could disagree with Scherrer’s sentiments.
“Well it’s tough times, it’s very difficult,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be on the school board right now.”
