Brewster School Board Passes ‘Miracle’ Budget
The outlook during Brewster school district’s proposed budget season was bleak. Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jane Sandbank had previously said it was the worst in her seven years as head of the district.
Large cuts were looming across the board leaving the district with minimal hope and parents mightily concerned.
But as the Brewster Board of Education finally adopted a budget unanimously Tuesday night, school board president Dr. Stephen Jambor called the final outcome a “miracle.”
“It started out terribly and we weren’t all that optimistic. We had basically two plans,” Jambor said in an interview. “One was to go to the pragmatic plan of what to do to survive and then there was the miracle option where we were hoping against hope that something really special would happen and as it turned out, that’s exactly what happened. The miracle really took shape thanks to the teachers.”
With a new contract agreed on between the district and the Brewster Teachers Association that will save the district $1 million and additional state aid, the district was able to restore some of the positions and programs that were originally on the chopping block.
Overall, Brewster is under the state imposed tax cap with a tax levy increase of 1.94 percent. The total budget is $85,999,723.
Among the restorations were .4 toward the Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (NJROTC) program, a fourth grade teacher, an art and a music teacher and also four modified sports teams.
Additions the district is also moving forward with is five more teachers and aides for JKF elementary school in order to implement full-day kindergarten.
Full-day kindergarten is one aspect the administration and school board expressed excitement over. With the vast majority of schools districts around the region already having full day kindergarten, Jambor said the late addition was important for Brewster students.
“It’s not just even keeping up with others, it’s keeping up with what’s right for kids in terms of their education,” Jambor said.
Overall, there will be ten kindergarten sections for next year. Jambor and Sandbank both emphasized that this implementation to extend kindergarten is one that would be sustainable long term.
The cost of the full-day program would be approximately $800,000, Sandbank said.
The state would provide $400,000 additional funds to the district for the conversion from half-day to full-day in the first year.
After the implementation of full-day kindergarten, NJROTC was another crucial program Jambor was happy to see get back to full strength. With a looming .4 cut to an instructor position, the Navy could have pulled the funding for the program forcing Brewster’s NJROTC to disband.
“NJROTC is a very unique program and it captures a certain group of kids that really benefit from it,” Jambor said. “So all of us were struggling to make that happen and certainly the way things turned out, it fell into place.”
The district will have a budget hearing on May 14, before the school budget is voted on May 21.
While a press conference the previous day announced an agreement between the teachers and district, it was officially approved by the board of education Tuesday. An agreement with the Brewster Administration Association that would save the district money was also approved. Each school board member praised the two deals, at one point requesting that the teachers and administrators in attendance stand up for a round of applause.
Jambor said with position cuts hanging over the district’s head, there was a “sense of urgency” to strike a deal. An overriding feeling at the negotiation table was the basis that both sides were no longer against each other, but “everybody getting on the same page and saying ‘you know what, we’ve got to make that happen,’” Jambor said.
