"Proposed school renovation voted down in New York Mills"
Are people getting the message that it makes no sense to expand schools when the population is shrinking? Who knows? The vote was close. Maybe NYM voters were simply upset at being played for fools when the school district cited a school closure in the early 1980s as a reason to expand buildings now. Or maybe the NYM SD did not hire enough residents to skew the vote . . . or they did, but even the employees have had enough with taxes.
Unfortunately, declining enrollments in New Hartford were not a discussion issue in the main stream media when NH had its capital project vote -- and were not considered in BOCES' expansion project either. Both projects will saddle taxpayers not only with project costs, but maintenance costs well into the future. And be prepared for taxes to support these projects to go even higher, particularly in New Hartford. Why? Demographics. New Hartford is OLD. 23.7% of the population is over 65 compared with 12.4% average in the US. Expect a precipitous drop in population when these people "age out." Then watch housing values tumble -- and taxes rise -- driving even more population loss. As Gear pointed out over the weekend, the "feedback loop" puts us in a death spiral.
When the population of the County has already declined by over one fourth, it makes no sense for government, schools, and public infrastructure to expand.
We need a graceful way to contract.
9 comments:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe the NH Capital project is an expansion of anything. It is my understanding that it is more of a renovation of existing facilities.
I have been inside New Hartford High School and the facilities, especially the auditorium and some of the classrooms, are ancient to say the least.
Expansion may not be necessary, but renovation and updating of existing facilities is something that has to be periodically done with any structure - residential, commerical or governmental. Why not do it now when the state is providing more financial assistance for these types of projects than it has in the past 15 years (in the form of EXCEL aid)?
The renovations would still probably be needed 5 or 10 years from now, but local taxpayers would be saddled with a greater percentage of the burden if they were done then.
I am so glad that the New York Mills residents came to their senses and voted down this capital expenditure.
At least the village residents have the common sense to tell the New York Mills School Board and Superintendent - Hell No!
Someday the people in New Hartford will tell that School Board and their Superintendent - Hell No!
Let's hope it will not be too late when town taxpayers "wake-up" and smell the roses.
New Hartford schools has excess infrastructure. Myles Elementary School, Clinton Road is only at 40% capacity. It would have been easier to take the Oxford Road Elementary students and bus them to Myles thus freeing up more classroom space.
Honestly, with a loss of 200 students, classrooms projected MUST be downsized and too, Administrator positions need to be cut. We must be serious about cutting these costs or else who will ultimately pay the price?
Don't you find it ironic that the School Board of Education cried wolf when stating that more classroom space was needed. If true, why then would the NH School Board of Education APPROVE the "renovations" once again, of the Athletic Field (previously refurbished in 2002) over that of renovating the claimed overcrowded classrooms?
It does appear that School District Administrators and the N.H. School Board Member do not have their heads screwed on correctly or perhaps, they are all "brain-dead!"
Sure spend the monies for useless renovations. Let's consolidate the school district's surplus properties and infrastructure with a goal towards environmental cost-saving initiatives.
If we call these people EDUCATORS...then we certainly are in a hell of a lot of hot water!
It sounds to me like the NH School Board really hoped this news of smaller enrollment wasn't told: That way they could just keep on telling us they need new this and new that.
How can they justify this "upgrade" or "expansion" (depending upon the beholder) when their school enrollment is and is ecpected to continue to go DOWN.
Would Mike Arcuri please shut off the lights when he leaves.
I'm moving my family OUT of here.
Educator,
Cut classrooms and administrators for a mere 6.5% enrollment decline? What specific administrators would you cut? I know that there are 2 building administrators in the High School and 2 in the Junior High. Does a 6.5% enrollment decrease mean that the administrative staff can be effective with a 50% cut? That is a bit drastic in my opinion, and I'm not willing to admit that our area will never recover and enrollment will continuously go down.
I will admit that we have a senior citizen overload in this area and that is a problem, but if you allow a school to become run-down and dilapadated younger families will never want to move to this area. We should start having some zoning laws that encourage medium cost housing development for younger families and try to prevent all this senior citizen housing that is always going up across our area.
My two sons attend another local High School that is physically in far better shape than New Hartford Senior High. The first thing I thought of when we traveled to New Hartford for music and athletic events is how terribly outdated the facilities there are.
I hope that other posters who are saying that NH does not need renovations are only saying so because they have not been inside of the building and don't really understand how far NH's facilities are behind other local districts.
After a while I replaced the shag carpet and old aluminum siding on my house, why are people so against a school district periodically doing what we all do in our own homes? It really isn't responsible to demand that children spend 7 hours a day in a broken run down facility that you and I would never step foot in.
New Hartford does not need more astroturf or more buses... neither does Sauquoit Valley. We residents are getting a soaking.
Anonymous,
If you think a 200 student enrollment drop is nothing...then you are sadly mistaken. Combining that with only a 40% occupancy rate at the Myles Elementary School.
What about the costs of maintaining a building that has 60% excess capacity. Who do you think we are?
This is no game we are playing here. By the way, I thought New Hartford was going to be sharing the cost of Mandarin Teacher with Clinton? Seem like Clinton is no longer interested in these charges?
If one of the elementary schools is at 40% capacity then you have three choices:
1) Keep the status quo
2) Close that elementary school and send the students to the two other overcrowded elementary schools
3) Change the boundary lines to decrease the number of students at Oxford Rd and Hughes and increase the number at Myles.
However, I still don't understand what excess capacity at Myles has to do with updating a dilapadated run-down high school. Say you decide to close Myles and have elementary classes of 35 students each in the other two elementary schools....how does that solve the problem of crumbling high school classrooms and an ancient decrepit auditorium.
I swear some of you people get fixated on one issue and can't get past it. If you want NHCSD to deteriorate just come out and say it. I sure as hell hope voters in my school district do not feel the same wys.
If public education is no longer a priority for residents of our area and the consensus of the citizenry is that we no longer care about our students then please let me know soon so I can sell my house and move to an area where I know my boys will get a good education in a facility that isn't crumbling around them. Then NH and the rest of our area can become the senior citizen paradise some of you seem to be looking for.
it is nice that utica ny population is increasing making for the buildimg of new schools in order to meet the needs. We need even more refugies it will make this area shine.
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