Budget Concerns Persist in Herricks School District

The Herricks Board of Education met Thursday night for their regular board meeting, and despite asking the packed house audience members to refrain from discussing the budget or residency issues, there weren’t many tight-lips.

Board President Christine Turner said, “We haven’t really started talking about the budget that was presented to us because we haven’t been presented with the superintendent’s budget. We have been talking about different scenarios and different things because of the two percent cap, but tonight is not a budgetary meeting, so we are not going to be talking per say about the budget.”

But the residents didn’t want to wait for answers, and still gave their input on what should or should not be cut from the budget this year.

Patricia Troiano, co-president of SEPTA said, “We were cut last year…we would like you to consider what goes on with special education children. The earlier that these children are — let’s put it this way — beat up on and taught what they have to do, the better it is for society. They are the responsibility of this district until they are 21-years-old, so let’s try to get them early, give them the skills they need to become productive members of the community, and that starts here in the school district.”

Another woman responded to Troiano and said that given the fact that it costs $22,000 to educate a student without special services, cutting out two special needs children because of non-residency issues saves the district at minimum $44,000.

“[Dr. Bierwirth says there are two more [non-residency students] on the horizon; the way I look at it is that’s $88,000. That saves your education. That’s one teacher. That’s a sports program. That’s special education. So I don’t care how you want to look at it, bottom line, that’s bucks in my eyes.”

Audience members went back and forth between residency and budget issues until the agenda items were finally discussed.

The board actively pursues the residency issues the district faces and in terms of the budget, Dr. Bierwirth said, “Health insurance came in less than expected, the retirement system went up, but not by as much as they said we should expect, so we’re down significantly from where we started. We are taking the ideas that were discussed, and trying to figure out how to put the best package together that we possibly can in order to minimize the impact of students.”

The board will present the proposed budget at the next meeting on Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. at Herricks High School.