Finances key in Batavia school board race
The new Batavia school board’s biggest challenge might be financial. The district is starting to pay back money borrowed for a $75 million building campaign, plus will negotiate a new teachers contract with the existing deal expiring in 2012.
Incumbents Kathleen Roberts and Matthew Winkle, plus Cathy Dremel, Patti Kozlowski and Gregg Hodge are running for three seats.
For Kozlowski, 63, a retired educator, it’s time to fulfill a promise made when she moved to Batavia and was anxious to see how her sons would adapt to change. Thanks to engaging teachers, they flourished. “If I ever had the opportunity I wanted to give back,” she said.
Dremel, 43, characterized herself as having a “foot in each world.” She’s a businesswoman with a master’s degree, who has lately been a stay-at-home parent volunteering at her children’s school.
Hodge, 50, has led the Batavia High School Booster Club and served on the district’s facilities commission. “I think this is just a natural progression for me,” he said.
Roberts, 62, is a retired advertising executive who has served 20 years on the board. Winkle, 44, who grew up in Batavia, is co-owner of Weldstar, a welding-supplies firm.
The issues
Hodge said as a crew leader for the city’s electrical division, he is used to dealing with the public and its questions. “You may not like the answer you get, but I will get you the correct answer. ... Things have to be much more transparent,” he said, including posting more district documents on its website.
Dremel cited as a transparency example the board’s vote to abandon its promise to keep the property tax rate stable, made to voters when the building campaign was approved. The board did not have to bring that measure to a vote, she said; it had the authority to raise the rate. “They did that so the public was informed,” she said.
While the district is responsible for the largest part of the tax bill, the expansion of the high school, including a field house and auditorium has been criticized by some as grandiose.
Dremel said the griping reflects the economic times. “When it is finished and times are better, people will be proud,” she said, adding that when it comes to cutting a budget, classrooms should be spared at the expense of extracurriculars.
Roberts cautioned against cutting activities too deeply, saying “that for many children, it is the artistic, athletic and extracurricular programs that keep them on track and inspire them to excellence in the classroom.”
Hodge is cautious about raising user fees for extracurriculars. “ ‘Pay-to-play’ is elitist,” he said. He suggests asking the schools’ parent-teacher organizations to rethink how they spend the money they raise, directing more of it to essentials. “We’re going to have to use PTO money to fill some voids, to get through tough times,” he said.
Dremel said she would not ask for an operating rate tax increase “unless our basic educational atmosphere was in danger of not being able to be continued.”
Roberts agrees with Dremel, but declined to specify moves to make for solvency, preferring to wait until after administrators, the finance committee and bond advisers finish studying the problem. Teachers and administrators are also reviewing education programming. “These processes will provide a logical and rational framework for decision-making,” she wrote in a Daily Herald questionnaire.
Kozlowski suggested letting the teachers union know how much money the district has available, and then asking it to suggest how to allocate the dollars. Hodge said he has experience in negotiations, for union contracts for the city. The school district may be able to offer other things besides money — decent benefits, the opportunity to share jobs, he said.