School boards worried about economic downturn
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- August
- 27
  School board members from around New York who were polled by the state School Boards Association said their top concerns for the year included adequate state school aid (37 percent), the rising cost of employee benefits (23 percent) and the high cost of fuel (9 percent). Â
  “While student achievement and improving graduation rates are always on the minds of school board members, this poll tells us that they are very concerned about having the proper resources to meet the rising tide of employee benefits and energy costs,â€Â Timothy Kremer, executive director of the group, said in a statement.
  The economic downturn may affect schools and students in the form of longer bus rides, fewer extracurricular activities and more expensive lunches, according to the association.
   “The increased costs we all deal with in our day-to-day lives are having the same impact on school districts,â€Â Kremer said.Â
  Many of those polled said joining a health-care or other kind of purchasing consortium or consolidating school-district business functions could help control costs this year.
  Results are based on more than 450 responses online from school board members.
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on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 2:52 pm by Cara Matthews.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
