1. There is some good news - natural gas, gasoline and diesel fuel have all fallen in price and are unlikely to rebound quickly in a slumping economy. This means that the IRS mileage reimbursement rate is also likely to drop substantially effective January 1, 2009. Also, most vendors have by now stopped adding surcharges for deliveries due to cheaper fuel. If any still are, now is the time to ask them to stop.

2. There may be a steep decline in the number of retirements among professional staff due to losses in personal investment accounts (403b’s and IRA’s) This will mean less “breakage” for our budgets going forward and a very tight job market for new teachers coming out of school. What effect will this have on your District?

3. ERS and TRS rates are likely to increase substantially - but not in 2009-10. There will likely be an increase in 2009-10 but there is generally a two-year lag built into these rates. That may be the good news. The bad news is that those rates are likely to stay considerably higher for a long time after 2010-11, because the drop in the investment markets has been so large.

We are in the process of closely analyzing chaperones, subs, paraprofessionals, custodial overtime, clubs, and energy usage by building. An idea that was floated was to make building administration accountable for all costs within their building including energy usage and other areas mentioned above. Has anyone adopted this level of accountability at the building level?

Unfortunately what I mentioned above will only produce probably a drop in the bucket. Any creative ideas on cost reductions would be an enormous help state-wide as we head into our budget season. An idea or two from everyone would produce a thousand ideas state-wide that we can all use.

It is an “interesting” time.

#10 The $64,000 question. State politicians in both parties have acknowledged that nothing is off the table in the next round of State budge cuts on November 18th. Given that school aid was not touched in the August cuts, the speculation for a mid-year aid cut is increasing. But leaders in both the Senate (Skelos) and Assembly (Silver) have stated that a mid-year school aid cut should be avoided if possible and noted the negative impact such a cut would have on districts and local taxes. Coincidentally, both leaders were State Legislators the last time there was a mid-year cut. Those of their ilk don’t want to repeat it. We won’t know for sure until the Legislature returns on November 18th. But keep in touch with your local Legislator – if there are serious, they’ll likely reach out to school districts between election day and the 18th to gauge the local impact.

Comment to Question #7: Although it is the State’s perogative to change the funding at any time, we don’t feel that EXCEL aid will be cut. Since EXCEL funding is not an item that is directly paid out of the current State budget, but rather delegated to the Dormitory of the State of New York, it could be argued that to cut EXCEL funding would have little if any effect on the current State financial woes.