Index

• Budget Goals & Changes
• Budget Summary
• K-12 Enrollment
• Budget Areas
  • General Support
  • Instruction
  • Other Budget Items
• Vote and Voter Information

A Letter from the Board

The 1997-98 Putnam Valley School District budget maintains most existing school programs at their current levels, boosts a few critical ones, and reduces or eliminates several others (though not without some difficulty and pain). Reading remains a key priority at all grades. Next year we will fully support an every day early intervention first grade reading program that the Readers Digest Foundation helped fund this year. We will also expand remedial reading services at the Middle School. In addition, the budget will keep class sizes at a reasonable level, allow us to continue our technology program, purchase additional text books for the Middle School, and help us continue an ongoing preventive maintenance program at both schools.

The proposed budget will cost $17.8 million - an increase of about $1.24 million from this school year's budget. The increase is not due to the costs of the programs we are adding or maintaining. Rather, the bulk of it (over $950,000) comes from high school and special education tuitions that are beyond our control.

We have tried to hold down the increase by making cuts in some categories we have traditionally funded. For example, we have eliminated the positions of two permanent teacher substitutes and a part-time custodian, reduced a librarian position from full to part time, and cut staff development funding by one-fourth. Despite these reductions, the budget-to-budget increase is 7.49%. While we cannot say exactly what the tax rate will be (because we still need state aid and town assessable data), we anticipate that the increase will be just under ten percent.

We believe that this budget has high increases that will be difficult to accept. However, it does continue to provide an excellent education for the children of the Putnam Valley Central School District. If you wish additional information, please contact JohnC.Kleinegris, Superintendent of Schools, at 528-8143 or any of our Board of Education members listed below.

Budget Total:

Budget-to-Budget Increase:

Putnam Valley

Carmel

Cortlandt

Did you know that ...

Putnam Valley has its own Internet sites. Please visit:

• The District's home page.
• The Elementary School's home page.
• The Middle School's home page.

• The Middle School computer lab is open every afternoon for any Putnam Valley School District resident from 3:15 until 5:15 PM. In addition, the Parks and Recreation Department keeps our lab open on Thursday nights from 7 until 9:30 PM.
• Our web sites have won numerous local, state, and national awards and special recognitions from such organizations as the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Math and Science, Classroom Connect, and Yahoo!
• With two computer labs and most classrooms connected to networks, we are able to have over 100 students on computers - including the Internet - at any one time.