Tuxedo School District Board Meeting
March 27, 2008
6:30 PM

Absent: James Hickey; Michael Catenaro; a Greenwood Lake Representative
Late: Ray Barone

Acting President Petrosky called the meeting to order at 6:30 PM. The following agenda items of substance were discussed.

There are two types of remote instruction currently available to Tuxedo students. The first is the Distance Learning Program, which utilizes an audio-video classroom at the school. Currently, 11 six graders are using this Program to learn Mandarin along with several Woodbury students. The second remote learning tool utilizes the internet to offer over 240 courses on a global basis, and 457 schools have already committed to using the Virtual High School. Carol Lomascolo presented several potential pricing options to the Board to consider for the next school year’s budget in regards to the VHS, and it appeared that most Board members are in favor of initially funding some sort of trial VHS Program in the upcoming budget.

A NYS Department of Education senior member with a background in finance will be visiting both the Greenwood Lake and Tuxedo Districts in April to better understand the funding issues Greenwood Lake faces in sending its high school students to Tuxedo. This is the result of an ongoing effort by both Districts to try and get Albany to better understand the long standing financial issues that remain unresolved between the two Districts. With luck, this visit may produce through the political process, more State aid to one or both Districts.

Only one Greenwood Lake/Tuxedo budget meeting was held in March despite the time constraints both Districts are operating under to produce viable budgets by mid-April. According to Superintendent Zanetti, this meeting did not serve to resolve much of substance. At the meeting, Greenwood Lake asked Tuxedo to produce a Direct Cost Model budget for the next school year. Tuxedo did this, plugging in estimated cost numbers for the new school year and producing a tuition cost per student of approximately $14,210. Since the current Seneca Falls Formula [based upon last year’s costs] is about $13,800, Greenwood Lake’s Board clearly decided the Direct Cost Model was not to its liking.

Zanetti went on to say that Greenwood Lake sent over this week a “revised” Direct Cost Model of its own creation, which lowered projected tuition costs by about $3,000 from the Tuxedo version. Zanetti did not have enough time to study in detail the assumptions Greenwood Lake made in its model about Tuxedo’s cost structure or how Greenwood Lake arrived at any of its numbers. The next scheduled joint budget meeting is set for April 2 in Tuxedo at 7 PM. At this meeting, perhaps Greenwood Lake will be able to explain it “revised” Direct Cost Model.

During Public Participation, Tuxedo Park resident Uli Pendl asked for clarification of the tuition numbers used in both Direct Cost Models and the most recent Seneca Falls formula. These numbers were used in preceding two paragraphs.

Tuxedo resident Joanne Vernon asked what the Tuxedo Board would do if no agreement on tuition is reached with Greenwood Lale by the April 10 deadline Tuxedo has to finalize next year’s school budget. Neither the Board nor the Superintendent would commit to falling back on the Seneca Falls formula, but Zanetti said he believed the gross school budget’s increase for the 2008-09 school year would come in at less than 4%.

Tuxedo Park resident Michael Santoianni expressed his frustration and disappointment that even though a very important junction in the budgeting process has been reached, no Representative from Greenwood Lake’s School Board was present to answer the questions of both our Board and our citizens. It is hard to make the budgeting process a cooperative venture if both sides do not put forth an equal effort. He added that it was clear that Greenwood Lake’s Board has no desire to commit to a long term relationship with Tuxedo, and thus it is incumbent upon our Board to continue exploring alternative sources of revenue for the high school. Zanetti briefly commented on an initiative currently under way to attract tuition students from Districts other than Greenwood Lake.
The meeting adjourned into Executive Session to discuss a personnel matter at about 8:30 PM.

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