BCSD will pay the price for closing school's gym

Removing the wooden playing surface in the Fox Lane High School gym revealed cracks in the concrete floor running the length of the room, PHOTO COURTESY OF BCSD

By JEFF MORRIS 

The Bedford Central School District’s Board of Education Finance Subcommittee estimates costs of $80,000 for utilizing alternate facilities after the Fox Lane High School’s gym closure.

The subcommittee met Sept. 10 and discussed the additional expenses, trustee Prasad Krishnan said at the school board’s Sept. 23 meeting.

“It’s still in flux with the expenses,” Krishnan said, “but generally speaking we feel like this should be the added cost of having to find additional facilities, but also the transportation to handle the gym closure for the fall and winter sports.”

That added expense was balanced against savings in other areas.

A preliminary audit, said Krishnan, showed the district coming in “about $3 million under budget, with a $2.7 million surplus.” He said these are preliminary numbers, with an audit committee report coming in October when they get the final numbers.

Krishnan said although they were expecting health insurance expenses to be about $23.5 million, they started the year considerably higher based on numbers from health insurance consultant Siegel Group, based on how the previous calendar year had ended. However, he said, year-to-date they are fortunately coming in under the original budget, “so we should have a $3 million health reserve which we should be able to kick back into our general fund” once final figures are available.

Another item discussed was transportation, with a reduction in bus routes year-to-date having resulted in $400,000 in savings. Krishnan said while there have been talks about revisiting current bus routes and how they are impacting students, he said the district is undertaking a broader efficiency study to optimize routes and explore later school start times.

Jose Formoso, the assistant superintendent for business and operations, clarified the health insurance numbers, saying last year’s Siegel projection was about $4 million off what they actually saw. Board President Gillian Klein said she also wanted to offer a clarification, “because I feel like it came off confusing, right?” 

She said the 24-25 budget had a deficit of $3 million, driven by healthcare being over what was budgeted. The reverse was true of 25-26, when they were $3 million under what was budgeted. 

“So I don’t want it to sound like we are saving money and not trying to increase the student experience,” said Klein. “I just want to point out that one year we were under $3 million, one year we were over $3 million, and that is the volatility of health care that we now will not have moving forward because we have gone to a consortium instead of being self-insured.” 

Klein said when community members hear there’s an overage, they may feel annoyed that it wasn’t spent on students. 

“People should know that we’re acknowledging that and have kind of a long-term solution in moving forward that should leave us in a more even space because we’re just paying premiums.”

Klein also wanted to clarify, for those seeing a $400,000 savings on transportation “while students are having such a negative experience,” that the transportation director put out instructions a few weeks ago to have all bus drivers do attendance on every route. 

“There is a thought out, well-planned proactive solution in place to look at those numbers and to reallocate for any routes that are truly overbooked, and students are on the bus for way too long and don’t have appropriate seating.” She wanted parents to know they are looking at the student impact, not just the financial impact.

Formoso added that the routes were reduced in August, and they had significant changes coming into September. 

“It is being currently worked on and being fine-tuned, and we expect within the next two weeks that a lot of the conversation around that will all be properly handled,” he said.

After additional discussion around the fluctuations from a deficit to a probable surplus, Formoso said he would prefer to talk more about the surplus once the audit is complete, as these are all preliminary numbers. He said they would go into it in more detail at the finance committee “once the numbers are fully solidified,” and it’s all going to be presented to the board Oct 14.