Journeys in Learning Beyond the Classroom

Gilded Schools Face Hard Choices in Lean Times
By JANE GROSS

RIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y., Feb. 24 — A Cadillac education for her three children is why Connie Borho and her husband live from paycheck to paycheck in this affluent Westchester County village. Housing prices are off the charts. Real estate taxes are soaring. But the public school system provides the best of everything, as good as any private school.

Ms. Borho's son Jeff, 17, plays string bass in the jazz band. His favorite class is music theory, which has six students. Her daughter, Carly, 15, dances for an hour and a half every day and is choreographing her own productions. Billy, 10, moves to the combined middle and high school next year. There, construction is winding down on a new wing to accommodate mushrooming enrollment — 32 classrooms, a second library, a gymnasium, a cafeteria and a theater.

"Expectations are huge," said Ms. Borho, a lifelong resident of Briarcliff Manor. Hers for next year were typical: a new course, Music Theory 2. A real studio for Carly's dance program. Maybe an athletic trainer. "Is it real? Is it globally conscious?" Ms. Borho asked. "No. But it's why you live here. And I'm as bad as anybody else. We want what we want when we want it. What's considered a bell and whistle at other places is not considered a bell and whistle here."

Now bells and whistles are on the way out, even in the gilded suburbs. After 10 flush years, when to dream it was to have it in high-end school districts, hard times have hit hard and fast. With limited federal help for the states; a budget proposal by Gov. George E. Pataki that imposes devastating cuts on education; and huge increases in the cost of fuel, security and mandated but unfinanced programs, there is no way around the fact that Briarcliff, and districts like it, will face the double whammy of paying more and getting less.

"I don't want to scare people because nobody's ready for it yet," said Dr. Frances G. Wills, Briarcliff's school superintendent. "But we'll have to take a very close look at everything."

Unless the district cuts spending, the school taxes here, already the sixth-highest in the county, will have to rise 18 percent, district officials say. Such an increase would come on top of a 24 percent increase two years ago, to cover the costs of $36.8 million in construction bonds to nearly double the capacity of a school system bursting at the seams.

"We have to try and stay reasonable on the tax rate because of seniors on fixed incomes and people who have lost jobs and are in a precarious financial condition," Dr. Wills said. "The expectation here is we have a very rich program. But at times like this, where do you draw the line?"

Briarcliff Manor, a cozy village with a median household income of $147,393, is a golden place. Taxes on the average house run about $16,000 a year, with about $11,000 of that going to the schools. On the basis of formulas keyed to wealth, the Briarcliff school district gets just 9 percent of its money from the state. In poorer districts, that share can run as high as 80 percent, and the state's proposed cuts will be far more painful.

Those poorer districts cannot assume that the citizens will dig deep for another tax increase. And they generally do without private organizations, like the Education Foundation here, which raises money for extras like a Steinway grand for the high school auditorium and yoga classes at Todd Elementary School.

The foundation, along with the Booster Club and the PTA, augmented programs in Briarcliff by $178,000 this year. It bought every child here a graphing calculator. "In Ossining," said Ms. Borho, the foundation's director and treasurer of the PTA, "they can't even think about doing that. They share."

People here are mindful of their good fortune and shudder at being characterized as rich whiners.

"As blessed as we are, we work hard for our money," said Dana Gold, co-president of the PTA and a special education teacher in White Plains. "You don't know what's in people's pockets. These are hard times for us, too, and we weren't quite mentally prepared."

Dr. Wills is careful when the subject turns to haves and have-nots. She praises her district for its "humane values," for being one of the first in the county to make community service a graduation requirement. She said she resisted being "patronizing by saying how lucky you are to be paying 50 grand in taxes."

Nor does Dr. Wills fault Briarcliff's parents for unreasonable expectations. But others in the community do. A local businesswoman, who insisted that she not be identified because she was criticizing her own customers, said this generation of parents, compared with her own, were "very, very spoiled" and demanded "beautiful extras" like Shakespeare in the fourth grade and conservatory-level music lessons.

"That's for good times, not lean times," she said. "They're living in a bubble."

But what if you moved here and bought a house you could not quite afford but assume will appreciate, all because of your children, whose education is paramount? "You've made a commitment to your kids, and it's cheaper than private school," Ms. Gold said. "That's how we justify it."

Ms. Gold said she could not imagine building a consensus for any cuts in academic programs. Not the fabulous performing arts offerings, which parents could duplicate at private dance, music or art classes. Not a single advanced placement class, however low the attendance. Certainly she could not imagine a consensus for increasing the average class size.

Ginny Jackson, co-president of the PTA, teaches in the Bronx, where classes of 34 are permitted. "If you tried 34 here, parents would be camped outside the superintendent's office," she said.

But the number-crunchers say there is no avoiding both service cuts and tax increases. The biggest problem is not the proposed state budget cuts of $651,926, but the multiple demands on school districts, from the state or federal government, which have grown ever more expensive and are not reimbursed. These so-called unfunded mandates include health insurance for teachers, special education, preparation for new state and federal assessment tests, defibrillators and employee fingerprinting. School officials estimate that such mandates, combined with increases in other fixed costs, will add $6 million to the budget.

Dr. Wills, her deputies and school board members will fan out in the community to explain what is at stake, as they did before the 1999 bond issue, which passed by a two-to-one ratio, and the subsequent tax increase, a 72-vote squeaker.

One set of voters, those with children in the schools, will need convincing that there is no choice but careful cutting.

The other set, empty-nesters or the elderly, will need good reason not to say no to higher property taxes, often the only taxes that Americans can vote on directly.

Communities like Briarcliff Manor generally pass budgets on the first try. If a budget fails in May, the board will come back with a modified proposal. But a second defeat would mean the automatic implementation of a spending plan that by state law permits only a 1.7 percent increase.

"In one fell swoop," Dr. Wills said, "that would destroy everything we have spent years building."

It would also affect real estate values, which have nearly doubled in the last six years, with the average sale price of a home now more than $800,000.

Few retirees can afford to stay here, said Jeanne Lepore, branch manager of the Houlihan Lawrence real estate agency. But those who do retain a stake in the schools. "They won't vote it down if they think of the resale value of their houses," she said.

Such cool calculation would be welcome at school board meetings, generally sparsely attended but likely to be crowded and noisy from now to May 20. Ms. Borho is a regular. It is usually pretty dry stuff. But in coming months, she expects to hear the death knell for her daughter's dance program or her son's music theory class.

"I'll be screaming and yelling, making the biggest stink you ever heard," Ms. Borho said. "But deep in my heart, I know it's got to happen. If I was in charge, I'd cut it, too. "