Wednesday, May 21, 2014
School vote: Newburgh school board shake-up
In the mid-Hudson's largest school district of more than 11,000 students, there's been a major shake-up.
District voters went to the polls on Tuesday and voted out all three school board incumbents who were running for re-election, Mark Levinstein, Thomas Woodhull and school board president Dawn Fucheck.
Instead, out of the field of 14 candidates, voters went out and elected the four candidates endorsed by the Newburgh Teachers Association: Carole Mineo, Kenneth Copertino, William Swart and Darren Stridiron.
"I'm very excited and I'm waiting for the challenge and I think it's going to be great," said Mineo, the top vote getter with 1,549 votes.
Newburgh's proposed $244.8 million budget also sailed to victory. It won by a more than 2-to-1 margin. For the second year in a row, the district discussed the possibility of closing a school, but was once again able to avoid it.
For Tuxdeo, it was a difficult night as its $15.9 million budget went down in defeat as it attempted to override its tax cap for the third straight year in a row.
This year, the budget received 53 percent of voter approval, which would have been enough to get the spending plan passed if it had been below or at the tax cap.
A district can exceed its tax cap only if at least 60 percent of voters agree to it. But it was unable to pull off the trifecta.
It was a different story for Valley Central. Voters turned out to pass its $92.4 and allow the district to successfully exceeed its tax cap. The passage of the budget allows the district to restore essentially of the programs that it cut last year, including elemnetary art.
Last year, district voters shot down the initial budget proposal, which called for a 9.81 percent increase in the tax levy, more than twice their 4.31 percent cap.
As a result, a number of programs were cut. The proposed 20134-15 budget would restore most of those cuts, including elementary art and music, full-time kindergarten, the Junior ROTC program, junior varsity and modified sports, after-school buses at the middle school, and the all-district concert.
In the Pine Bush, the four-way race race for two open school board seats focused on a controversial proposal to divide the district into geographic zones that would elect their own board member.
The plan was spearheaded by two candidates, Marianne Serratore and Rebecca Christner, who oppose the 396-home Hasidic development in Bloomingburg and expressed concerns about a possible Hasidic voting bloc.
Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther (D-Forestburgh) has been in talks with the State Education Department over the legality of such a plan.
In all, mid-Hudson voters were asked to decide on about 80 school board candidates and 34 district budgets totaling nearly $2.2 billion.
Their decisions will impact education for the region's approximately 97,000 public school students in the 2014-2015 school year.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140521/NEWS/405210327
District voters went to the polls on Tuesday and voted out all three school board incumbents who were running for re-election, Mark Levinstein, Thomas Woodhull and school board president Dawn Fucheck.
Instead, out of the field of 14 candidates, voters went out and elected the four candidates endorsed by the Newburgh Teachers Association: Carole Mineo, Kenneth Copertino, William Swart and Darren Stridiron.
"I'm very excited and I'm waiting for the challenge and I think it's going to be great," said Mineo, the top vote getter with 1,549 votes.
Newburgh's proposed $244.8 million budget also sailed to victory. It won by a more than 2-to-1 margin. For the second year in a row, the district discussed the possibility of closing a school, but was once again able to avoid it.
For Tuxdeo, it was a difficult night as its $15.9 million budget went down in defeat as it attempted to override its tax cap for the third straight year in a row.
This year, the budget received 53 percent of voter approval, which would have been enough to get the spending plan passed if it had been below or at the tax cap.
A district can exceed its tax cap only if at least 60 percent of voters agree to it. But it was unable to pull off the trifecta.
It was a different story for Valley Central. Voters turned out to pass its $92.4 and allow the district to successfully exceeed its tax cap. The passage of the budget allows the district to restore essentially of the programs that it cut last year, including elemnetary art.
Last year, district voters shot down the initial budget proposal, which called for a 9.81 percent increase in the tax levy, more than twice their 4.31 percent cap.
As a result, a number of programs were cut. The proposed 20134-15 budget would restore most of those cuts, including elementary art and music, full-time kindergarten, the Junior ROTC program, junior varsity and modified sports, after-school buses at the middle school, and the all-district concert.
In the Pine Bush, the four-way race race for two open school board seats focused on a controversial proposal to divide the district into geographic zones that would elect their own board member.
The plan was spearheaded by two candidates, Marianne Serratore and Rebecca Christner, who oppose the 396-home Hasidic development in Bloomingburg and expressed concerns about a possible Hasidic voting bloc.
Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther (D-Forestburgh) has been in talks with the State Education Department over the legality of such a plan.
In all, mid-Hudson voters were asked to decide on about 80 school board candidates and 34 district budgets totaling nearly $2.2 billion.
Their decisions will impact education for the region's approximately 97,000 public school students in the 2014-2015 school year.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140521/NEWS/405210327
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