Question For the Board

It appears the Board of Education has adopted a practice of calling the monthly board meeting to order and then going into executive session for 90 minutes or more leaving citizens waiting for their return.  This practice shows utter disdain for the citizens who would like to participated in the process.  The board, in the past,  has complained about the apparent lack of interest the community has had in board meetings.  Leaving citizens waiting 90 minutes or more, with absolutely no indication when they will return does not foster an environment where citizens will want to participate. 

Is this just a lack of sensitivity by the board, or is it  by design to discourage public participation?     

Question For the Board

Has there been any consideration given to expanding the Northville Central School Board of Education from five board members to seven board members?  Expanding the board by two members would allow for greater expertise among the members, reduce the number of committees each board member is responsible and allow for greater diversity of thought among the board.     

School Board To Set Tax Levy

The Northville School Board will set the tax levy during the school board meeting scheduled for this Tuesday, 8/16, at 6:30, in the school auditorium.  It appears the board is poised to  pass a +20% increase, even though the voters soundly rejected such an increase and  HRBBRD has announced they will be paying more than  $600,000 in back taxes.

The school board has consistently stated the +20% increase is, in large, being driven by the loss of revenue from HRBBRD.  In light of HRBBRD announcement there should be no more than a 5% levy increase.  If the board  does other than a 5% increase, it is clear they are double dipping this year in order to circumvent the 2% cap on tax increases which will go into effect next year. 

Please encourage all of your neighbors to visit this site and to attend Tuesdays Board meeting.  Let your voices be heard.

Question For the Board

Now that HRBRRD has agreed to pay the Northville Central School District approximately $656,000 in back taxes, will the Board move to decrease the pending +20% tax increase?

Qusetion For the Board

On August 9, 2011  "The Daily Gazette" published the English and Math test results for the Capital Region school districts as reported by the state Education Department.  The result were for school districts in Albany, Fulton, Mongomery, Saratoga, Schenectady and Schoharie Counties.  There were only two school districts with poorer results than Northville.  They are Albany School District and Schenecady School District.  Only 27% of Northville 8th graders test proficient in English and 38% of Northville 8th graders tested proficient in Math.  So the question to the Northville Board of Education is; who is being held accountable for these results and what is being done to improve on these results? 

Questions for Northville School Board

This school board (as well as plenty of others ones) has a habit of hiding money from the public by padding the budget and rebalancing on paper through the use of reserve funds. The audited 09/10 budget shows no less than $571,744 of such funds – the equivalent of 10% in taxes! This year’s budget appears to also have a very substantial amount of padding, in anticipation of the State tax cap. In fact, it may have as much as 10% worth of padding. The District is providing the public intentionally with misleading numbers, For instance, the flyer states that State funding was reduced by 6.9% while NYS state aid web site page shows a far lesser decline (less than 2% = $66,316). The site also shows a $32,000 increase in transportation aid including summer. This is public information and these numbers were obtained a few days ago. How does the Board explain these differences?

Questions for Northville School Board

A school is an important community resource. One way the cost of school facilities can be justified, especially for older tax payers that have no (grand) children in the school - the most rapidly growing demographic - is by creating adult education programs within the school and promoting other creative ways of amortizing district expenses in ways that benefit the community residents. A deliberate policy to spread the use over the entire taxpaying population would help to make excessive tax burden more acceptable. Why are there no adult education programs and why does the school not make MUCH better effort to promote community use of its facilities as the local population is aging? Could the school profitably market some of its facilities and resources to create additional income from non-traditional sources?