Slentz shares district’s mission

By Lori Ruhlman

School Information officer

Whenever Superintendent Ken Slentz talks about the budget, he starts by sharing the mission statement of Skaneateles Central Schools.

It is what he did when he took some time to meet with Skaneateles Rotarians to share insights into the prposed 2016-17 budget.

The mission is a reminder “of why we do everything we do,” he said.

“The mission of the Skaneateles Central Schools is to provide positive and successful learning experiences for all students,” Slentz said. “The schools will also strive to provide students with the knowledge and problem-solving skills necessary to contribute and adapt to an ever-changing world. Within a caring and student-centered environment, the schools will offer a balanced educational program with high expectations to challenge and motivate each student. The school staff, students, parents, Board of Education and community share the responsibility for this mission.”

Slentz talked about “welcoming the idea of failure” as a key to learning.

“Research shows that people learn and retain the most by failing and persevering to try again,” Slentz said. “More important than knowing the answer is being able to find and discover the answers.”

He said this is particularly important today as educators prepare students to live in an ever-changing world where people need and thrive best with a “growth mindset.”

Slentz praised the “unique place we live” as well as the teachers in Skaneateles Schools who do a great job and also continually work to find better ways to challenge and inspire students.  It is the desire to meet this mission that propels administrators and board members to continually strive to keep operating costs down.

“To maintain our focus on what matters most, we work to stretch the value of every dollar,” Slentz said.

An example is leveraging the district’s building aid ratio.

“With a 63 percent return on investment on state-approved building projects, we carefully time our investments and payment structures” to reduce local costs. Likewise, the district is leveraging BOCES for services and purchases.

“We get a good portion of that back in aid,” he said.

He said that recent news about the district’s increase in state aid could be misleading.

“Our actual foundation aid increase was zero,” Slentz said. “The increase reported was largely on our expense based aid where we spend money to generate the aid.”

Rotarians get snapshot into school referendums

Skaneateles voters will find four school district propositions on the ballot May 17, along with the additional first-time-ever proposition from the Skaneateles Public Library, Superintendent Ken Slentz told Rotarians Thursday.

Ironically, of the four school propositions on the ballot May 17, it is one of the propositions that is not asking for money that worries Superintendent Ken Slentz the most.

That is because the details can be confusing and the wording is complicated.

“This is the one that worries me because it is so technical,” Slentz said as he described Proposition Four, which establishes a reserve fund. “It is really a technical amendment to put already established and existing money into a newly established Capital Reserve Fund. The money is already there.  This is not an ask for new money.”

Proposition 4 seeks voter approval for establishing a ten year Capital Reserve Fund that was previously established IN 2008 by the Board of Education but now needs community approval. This proposition also asks for approval to transfer the existing amount of $1,080,000 into that Capital Reserve and to withdraw $250,000 of the funds for technology upgrades. The technology upgrade that is planned will likely be less than $250,000 and is for the replacement of the district’s telephone system which was installed in 2003. For more on the district reserves, please see our website (under BOE/budget).

Proposition 2: Bus Proposition 

Rotarians were interested in hearing about the new bus replacement plan that is reflected in Proposition 2.  While transporting students in a safe and time-efficient matter is always a top priority, it is also an expensive endeavor.  Slentz said the district studied new options in an attempt to be cost effective. “We did a ton of research to find a better way,” he said.

The result: an innovative new bus replacement plan will improve safety of student riders AND ultimately reduce the number of buses and increase the predictability of costs. This involves the efficient replacement of an aging bus fleet over the course of the next 5 years. Replacing buses sooner with a guaranteed by-back will result in substantial savings in purchase costs (fewer buses and greater buy-back) and in repair costs. While implementation of this plan will require an upfront investment by the district, it will save money in the long run.

Slentz said the district’s advisory committees support the idea of using “some of our reserve fund money” to offset the initial higher costs as the district enters into this new program.

“Cost saving measures like this help accomplish our ultimate goal of providing the best educational programs for students while being fair to taxpayers,” Slentz said.

Transportation Center (Proposition 3)

Superintendent Ken Slentz told Rotarians that the transportation facility needs repair, and that a combination of building aid and reserve funding will keep the local share at zero.  The proposition asks voters to approve a cost of $97,000 but it will not impact local taxes.

Board member Julie Abbott-Kenan has previously put it this way: “Why would we invest money in a facility that doesn’t house, or seem to directly impact our students? Because we have a ‘homeownership,’ or stewardship responsibility for our properties and a rare chance to upgrade without costing our tax-payers a dime. The bus garage is in dire need, and this proactive approach drives state aid back to the district. Local tax dollars can then continue supporting our mission.”

Slentz noted that the project at the transportation center is unique in that the district and the town share a reserve account that may be used only for repairs to the facilities in the adjacent area. “The money cannot be used for a project within the school buildings or to hire additional staff for example,” he said.

Rotarians discuss library proposition

Slentz said the fifth proposition is not related to the district.  It is for the Skaneateles Public Library AND is on the school ballot as required by New York State law.  Communities state-wide vote on public library funding requests through their school districts, even though public libraries are not connected to school budgets. While other communities are used to seeing this, it is a first for Skaneateles.

Rotarian Robin Jowasis asked if passage of the library proposition will mean the Skaneateles Library will no longer be one of only two libraries in the state with no public funding.  Rotarian David Lee confirmed that is true, and said “it is a real testament to this community that the library has been funded privately for so long.”

Lee said it has become increasing difficult for the library to raise enough money privately to operate effectively without eating into its endowment.

Slentztold Rotarians the board of education adopted the 2016-17 budget at its meeting Tuesday. The budget recommendation as well as other budget-related documents can be found skanschools.org.

For more information on the budget that will go before voters on May 17, please contact Superintendent Ken Slentz at [email protected] or at 291-2221, or attend the budget forum at the Waterman School Auditorium at 7 p.m. May 3.