Rochester School
Budget Passes
By Martha Slater

In their second time at the ballot box, Rochester voters emphatically approved a proposed 2008-09 school budget of $3.3 million by a vote of 204-124 in Australian balloting Tuesday. The same budget (actually, one dollar higher) had been defeated by just one vote (125-124) May 6.

Although the total voter turnout of 328 this time was almost 80 more than in May, a very small number of voters attended the previous evening’s informational meeting.

At that meeting, school board chair Tim Crowley noted that the board had "spent the last month listening very carefully to input from voters."

He said the comments received were divided into four areas: the new schedule, hiring consultants, reduction in staff, and issues with the supervisory union. He pointed out that a newsletter sent to voters last week had covered those four topics, and his fellow board members also spoke about each of them.

Tim Landwehr spoke about the new trimester schedule and the plan to move the sixth grade back to the elementary school building.

Peg McKinley spoke about the reasons for hiring consultants, noting, "We feel consultants are our best resource for determining where changes need to happen."

Beth Frock explained that "the reductions in staff are primarily the result of our new way of configuring our schedule and also a result of declining enrollment." She noted that, with the new schedule, the proposed reductions of tech ed, music and PE positions to half time would still meet the state requirements.

Greg White said the board had gotten "a lot of feedback about making the supervisory union accountable."

He recounted a history of problems with getting caught up on audits from past years, and explained the new reporting system implemented this year. White said communications had "greatly improved" between the business office and school treasurer, and progress had been made with finding ways to keep special ed costs down.

Public Comment

Mickey Lary asked a number of questions about figures in the recently-mailed report, receiving answers from White and WNWSU business manager Ollie Jakob.

Bruce McCarty said he was "willing to pay more than the very least to give our kids a good education," adding later, "It’s not what the cost is, it’s the investment, and with an investment you get a return."

Neal Cronce gave his opinion that the board had "treated veteran teachers wrongly and you’ll be remembered for that."

Asked about re-vote costs, Crowley replied that there was "no exact figure, but the cost of re-vote is significant from a number of standpoints—not just money, but time and delay in getting started on plans for next school year."

Barbara Dehart suggested that the only way to lower the cost of a re-vote "is to get rid of Australian ballot system and go back to voting at the meeting."

Dick Schulze asked if there was still an advantage to having the annual school meeting in May, instead of March.

Crowley replied, "May was a good idea at one time, but not any longer and it pushes us into a corner."

Tucker Cruikshank commented that "the cost of a re-vote is the cost of democracy." He also recommended that the board consider returning to having the school meeting at an earlier date.

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