By JEFF MORRIS //
At the Bedford Central School District Board of Education’s reorganizational meeting July 8, trustee Gilian Klein was elected as board president.
Klein, who joined the board in 2022, succeeds Robert Mazurek, who served one term as president. She was nominated by trustee Betsy Sharma and elected unanimously. Mazurek then nominated Steven Matlin for vice president; he too was elected unanimously and sworn in. Matlin had served in that position for the previous school year. District clerk Sandra Speyer had earlier administered the oath of office to new trustee Lisa Mitchell, who was elected May 21, as well as to Matlin and Mazurek. Matlin ran unopposed for a second term.
Mazurek, who had planned to step down from the board at the end of the 2023-24 school year, agreed to stay on for a year to fill the vacancy that was created when trustee Kristine Stoker suddenly resigned from the board May 24. Stoker, who was elected in 2023, had cited challenges with balancing her work and family responsibilities with her trustee work as reasons for her decision to leave the board during the first year of her term. At its June 12 meeting, the board discussed the options available for filling the vacancy. It ultimately decided that Mazurek’s financial knowledge and board experience made him the best choice to stay on. He was asked if he would be willing to volunteer to fill the position, and he agreed. The board appointed him to fill the opening until next year’s board election. He was sworn in July 1, following the expiration of his own term June 30.
Trustee Blakeley Lowry noted at the meeting that three trustee terms will expire next year — hers, Klein’s, and Amal Shady’s — and there will be a fourth seat up for election with the position that Mazurek will then be vacating. Unlike the other three seats, that seat will be filled immediately following next year’s board election in order to maintain a full seven- member board.
2024-25 budget
In this year’s budget vote May 24, the $155,825,000 2024-25 spending plan was passed by a better than 2-to-1 margin, 798 yes to 293 no. The budget is 2.15% higher than the 2023-24 budget, and the tax levy is expected to rise 2.95%.
Discussions and negotiations in the months prior to the board’s adoption of the proposed budget centered on the need for cuts and layoffs. Superintendent Robert Glass and Assistant Superintendent for Business and Administration Tom Cole said reductions were necessary to get the district back to a firm financial footing. Glass described it as “continuing our pathway toward long-term budget sustainability through right-sizing and strategic use of fund reserves.”
A major concern when Glass first presented his budget proposal was Gov. Kathy Hochul’s elimination of Foundation Aid as part of her original 2024 budget, which would have cost the district $1.6 million and set the plan to achieve a balanced budget without use of reserves back by a year. However, the state legislature later restored that aid. On Monday, Cole said they will actually end the year with a small surplus.
Parents and board members had spent considerable time discussing one particular part of the “right-sizing” plan: elimination of five full-time elementary coordinator positions, for a savings of $585,000. Concerns were raised about the wisdom of eliminating the coordinators at a time when the district was instituting a new literacy program. Ultimately the board supported the staff cuts as a necessary source of savings, and trustees said they will consider the possibility of adding those positions back later.
The discussion on staffing continued at the July 8 meeting, however, Matlin asked about an item in the consent agenda that approved certain certified staff members as “Teachers in Charge” when a principal is not in the building. That led to a review of the reasoning behind not appointing an educational coordinator in buildings that have an assistant principal, and why the teacher in charge would still be needed in buildings that have an assistant principal. The board decided to table that section of the consent agenda and bring it back for discussion at their next meeting.
Another topic was the possibility of revising the board meeting schedule. Klein said the additional meetings that were held during budget season were arduous, an opinion that was shared by Matlin. After considerable discussion, the board tentatively agreed to meet every three weeks, except during March and April, when they would meet every two weeks.