Chappaqua-Mount Kisco Patch. Chappaqua School Board Candidates: Q&A With Victoria Tipp

By Victoria Bayard Tipp

Chappaqua School Board Candidates: Q&A With Victoria Tipp

Patch: Tell us about yourself? For example, how long have you lived in the district, how many children you have in the district and what prior community involvement you have.

Tipp: I have lived in Chappaqua for eleven years. I have one child entering Horace Greeley High School next year and I have three who graduated in the years 2006, 2009, and 2010.

Patch: Why are you running for the school board and what experience do you feel can help?

Tipp: I believe that we are at a critical juncture in the evolution of our school district and in moving forward to adapt to economic challenges we should ensure the continuation of excellence in education. We must work to maximize our resources to preserve our educational programs in a fiscally responsible manner.

I believe that my experience has given me a relevant and informed perspective that would be of value on our Board of Education. My work has focused on being an advocate for effective communication, collaboration, and consensus building among the many constituencies in our town and school district.

I served as Chappaqua PTA President in 2007-2008 and Vice President in 2006-2007. On the district level, the PTA's role as an independent organization working within the schools, is to act in an advisory capacity to school boards, superintendents and principals, with regard to issues affecting students, parents and other groups within the district. It is a conduit for communication within a school community. I worked with the school administration and Board of Education to understand the policies, goals and operations of the school district, in addition to understanding the needs of the parent community, students and general public, and to communicate all information, issues, concerns and ideas between all groups. I worked with the PTA Executive Committee which includes PTA Chairs and Vice Chairs of our six schools, to address ongoing activities and issues that arose within each school. I also worked with chairpersons of 20 district level PTA committees and partnered with several town organizations to facilitate programs relevant to school community needs and interests.

On the school budget side, I have attended upwards of 50 Board of Education meetings and have closely followed the development of our school budget over the last four years. I organized several forums with Board members and administrators, to help the community understand and voice opinions about the budget.

I served for two years as co-chair of the Citizens' Non-Partisan Candidate Committee for the Board of Education (2008-2010). The role of this committee has been to seek out and encourage candidates to run for the Board of Education, to advise them about the role of a Board of Education member and provide them with a description and explanation of the many issues that a Board member must address.

I served on the Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters of New Castle, working on local planning issues and attending numerous Town Board meetings. The objective was to study the issues in a non-partisan objective manner in order to help the community understand our Town Board's plans and to encourage the informed and active participation of our citizens in local governance.

As a result of my various roles, I have gained extensive knowledge of our community, our school district and its educational philosophy, policies and budget process, and the many issues we face. As two experienced Board members step down, I believe that my experience within the school district will give me the ability to step in without too steep of a learning curve. I also believe that my work and interactions with the many constituents in our school district will bring a valuable perspective to the Board as our school district moves forward to address current challenges.

Patch: Fiscal projections given by the district show a tough picture on the expense side for the next five years, particularly with pension contributions. Do you think budgets in the coming years can be managed without significant job cuts?

Tipp: One of our greatest challenges is to maintain our standards of educational excellence while developing fiscally responsible year to year budgets. Salaries and benefits comprise about 75% of our budget and due to state mandates, much of the benefits are beyond our control. Some projections show a significant increase in taxpayer contributions to public employee pension funds. This escalation of costs will require a thorough examination of all areas of the budget to find operational efficiencies. We must find ways to streamline our operations and to develop more economical ways to deliver a high quality educational program.

Patch: On a related topic, what changes, if any, do you feel should be made to the state-mandated contributions from the district to pensions of teachers and other public employees? Would you support instituting defined-contribution plans?

Tipp: We should work toward a plan that is fair to taxpayers, to our teachers and support staff, and above all to our students and their future education. New York State politicians have made promises to public employee unions without doing the hard work of implementing a sustainable structure and method of funding benefits. They have made promises that place the financial burden and risk on our homes and on our children and their education. Rather than jumping directly from a defined-benefit plan to a defined-contribution plan, a fair and pragmatic compromise may be to develop a hybrid plan with elements of both. Some states, such as Michigan, Utah, Oregon and Washington have already moved to create hybrid plans which combine a guaranteed benefit (perhaps with a floor and ceiling) with a 403 (b) component, which is a 401(k) type of plan for public education organizations.

Patch: Do you believe that faculty and staff should contribute more towards the cost of their health insurance premiums? If so, what percentage would you like to see?

Tipp: I believe that health insurance premiums should be in line with the average amount paid by school personel in Westchester County.

Patch: Would you support repealing the state's Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law, which keeps in place terms of expired union contracts during negotiations?

Tipp: I would support a modification of the Triborough Amendment. The original intent of the "Triborough Doctrine" was to prohibit an employer from unilaterally altering terms of a contract while a new agreement was being negotiated. It was meant to level the playing field for public employees who are barred from striking under state law. After being codified into the Triborough Amendment it was later interpreted to mean that "step-increases" provided for in a contract could not be altered or terminated during negotiations. This means that salaries continue to increase during negotiations and the status quo is not maintained. This is becoming prohibitive for school districts who are trying to maintain educational programs while paying for ever-increasing costs of benefits. I would modify the Triborough Amendment to allow for a freeze in step as well as salary increases to maintain the status quo at the end of a recently expired contract, as originally intended.

Patch: Would you like to see changes in the district's curriculum? If so, what are some major ones that you would support?

Tipp: Our district's plan for curriculum and instruction is on the right path. Our programs are of a high quality and the breath and depth of our course offerings reflect why Chappaqua schools are considered among the best in the country. There is a great emphasis on professional development in our district and collaboration among teachers, which provides continuous improvement. Our teachers and administrators are developing a curriculum that in addition to teaching students content, also teaches them to learn to think deeply, independently and creatively, to become problem-solvers, work in collaboration with others and take initiative for their learning. Our school district's curriculum plan ensures the continued quality, value and excellence of our educational programs.

Patch: What are your thoughts on restructuring the grade configurations of Seven Bridges and Bell? Would you support, as the board might consider in the future, making one middle school just for grades 5-6 and the other for grades 7-8? What about a merger of the two schools?

Tipp: It is important to look at streamlining our operations in the context of what is best for education. This means adapting to the most sustainable and long-term solutions that would enable our schools to deliver high quality educational programs and alleviate the growing taxpayer burden. There may be many benefits to the 5/6 and 7/8 reconfiguration on different levels + financial, educational and social. It is a decision to be taken only after a thorough cost-benefit analysis and input from the community.

Patch: What are your thoughts on the New Castle Town Board's rezoning votes last month to permit a smaller amount of housing (111 units) at Chappaqua Crossing, versus the 199 that developer Summit/Greenfield proposed? During the contentious debate, members of the public were concerned that allowing for the previous proposal - there remains opposition to the 111-unit amount - would lead to there being too many new kids in the district, driving up costs. Do you believe that the approved limited rezoning, assuming Summit/Greenfield were to go with it, could have this effect?

Tipp: Our Town Board members performed a difficult task and acted in good faith after much hard work, study and analysis, and I respect their decision. The mission of the school district is to educate all children within our borders and to ensure a high level of excellence in our educational programs.

Patch: Do you support Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed 2-percent cap on annual property tax increases? Would you, as current board members called for in a resolution earlier this year, oppose it if reforms are not made to current state mandates?

Tipp: Governor Cuomo seeks to provide relief to struggling homeowners and prevent the loss of small businesses in the state. I commend the Governor for these goals and for setting up a Mandate Relief Redesign team. However, there are problems with the proposal as submitted.

Local property taxes have increased exponentially as a result of political actions taken by our state representatives in Albany who are now, quite ironically, crying foul at runaway property taxes that to a large extent they are responsible for. With unfunded mandates in place, a school district has very limited ability to control costs. An analysis conducted by the New York State School Boards Association found that in calculating the cost of salaries, pensions and health insurance alone, which are determined either through mandates or collective bargaining (subject to restrictions such as the Triborough Amendment), there would be a shortfall of about $3.3 billion under the tax cap proposal (calculations are for the years between 2010-11 and 2013-14). This would have a devastating impact on school programs. Governor Cuomo would have to impose a moratorium on mandates until his Mandate Relief Redesign team comes up with sensible solutions.

In order to cope with this challenge, Governor Cuomo has suggested that school districts freeze the salaries of teachers and administrators. However, under the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law, with the exception of salary increases, all terms of an expired contract, including step-increases, remain in place until a new contract is negotiated.

The Governor has asked school districts to use their reserves to fund gaps. However, New York State also has rainy day funds which the Governor will not use because it will affect the State's borrowing power and will raise interest rates. Local school districts are subject to the same consequences. School districts do not have access to a line of credit as do private organizations, and must rely on reserve funds for emergencies and unanticipated expenditures. Extensive use of rainy day funds would deplete the funds altogether in a very short period of time. Moreover, a school district's credit rating would be downgraded, resulting in higher borrowing costs for future projects.

The proposal is finacially problematic as well. It establishes a 2 percent property tax cap or a cap set at the CPI (calculated over a 12-month period, ending six months prior to the start of the fiscal year), whichever is lower. This means we could have a tax cap lower than 2 percent in some years. Using a 12 month average to calculate the CPI is untenable. In this short period of time the CPI is highly volatile and subject to month to month fluctuations in food and energy prices. For example, the CPI was as high as 5.6% in July 2008, and as low as negative 2.1% in July 2009 (a range of 7.7%). It would be much more sensible to use a long-term moving average. A 5-year window (the average of 60 monthly changes) would eliminate much of this volatility. By always taking the lower of 2% or the CPI as calculated, in the long-term a school district's budget would not be able to keep up with the average rate of inflation (at about 2.4% in the last 10 years).

I believe in local autonomy. Property taxes would be at a much more manageable level without the burden of unfunded mandates and a community could still vote the budget down to a contingency level if it is deemed too high. It should be up to the taxpayer to decide what is best for it's own school district. I do not believe that state officials should either force uncontrollable costs onto local taxpayers or tell local taxpayers how to spend their money.