Job cuts reach BOCES - Times Union

BOCES around the Capital Region are shedding scores of jobs this year as the school districts that pay for their services face budget and job cuts of their own.

The equivalent of more than 200 full-time local staffers will lose their jobs this summer, with the prospect for getting them back come September much dimmer than in years past.

In the North Country, the elimination of an entire alternative education program in the Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES has helped fuel agency-wide job cuts that could top more than 90, said Terry Blanchfield, the organization's assistant superintendant for administrative services.

At Questar III -- the BOCES program for 23 school districts in Rensselaer, Columbia and Greene counties -- staffers have been notified that the full-time equivalent of 80 jobs, out of roughly 550 total, may not be there come fall, said Superintendent James Baldwin.

Not only is the number of job cuts in the North Country, which used to average between 40 and 50 during the summer, as much as double years past, the percentage of those staffers who will be reinstated once the school year begins again in September is likely to be much lower, Blanchfield said.

Past years have seen as much as 85 percent of staffers get their jobs back, but this year, Blanchfield said, the percentage could be a quarter that. Of the roughly 80 jobs cut last summer, only about 20 were reinstated come fall, he said.

Boards of Cooperative Educational Services -- which allow school districts to pool resources for services ranging from special education to public relations -- are funded by the member districts and supplemented by state and federal aid.

But with school budgets stretched thin by a third straight year of state aid cuts -- totalling about $1.2 billion for the coming school year alone -- local school district officials have been looking for ways to save money.

In the districts themselves, more than 700 teaching jobs were on the chopping block when voters went to the polls last month to approve district budgets, according to a Times Union survey.

"I don't think it's the quality of the programs, it's just a sign of the fiscal challenges," said South Colonie Superintendent Jonathan Buhner. "From a fiscal standpoint, districts have had to make all kinds of difficult decisions ... The cutbacks to education in general this year were massive. Unfortunately, some of that has impacted BOCES, also."

Capital Region BOCES -- which serves Albany, Schoharie, Schenectady and Saratoga counties -- will cut the equivalent of 48 full-time jobs, or about 4 percent of its staff of 1,200, said Superintendent Charles Dedrick.

Dedrick pegged the reason as two-fold.

"The areas where we're cutting back are areas where we've been cutting back for the past several years. It's a combination of both fiscal and educational," Dedrick said. "I think more and more districts are finding that they want to educate their special needs children in their home districts."

Special education classrooms, Dedrick noted, are resource intensive, meaning that eliminating classes means the loss of more than just one teacher's job.

Capital Region BOCES expects to run 86 special education classrooms next year, down from 92 this year.

"When we look at the special education takebacks, I think very much the fiscal situation has an impact on that," said Baldwin, the superintendent at Questar III. "Typically when districts are under fiscal strain, you will see them take more back then they otherwise might."

Reach Jordan Carleo-Evangelist at 454-5445 or jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com.

Source: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Job-cuts-reach-BOCES-1429646.php

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