Former BCS Board Member Urges Petersburgh Secession From School District

by Alex Brooks
At this month’s Petersburgh Town Board meeting the Town Board heard a presentation from Kurt Klein asking the Petersburgh Town Board to consider seceding from the Berlin Central School District and affiliating with another District.
Klein said he was a member of the Berlin Board of Education for 15 years, so he is fairly knowledgeable about the District and its operations. [private]He began by saying, “I have no dog in this hunt.” He said his kids are grown and he will be moving away from the area in the not too distant future, but he felt he had to speak up for the children of Petersburgh, as well as the taxpayers.
Klein said in his opinion the Berlin District is “completely dysfunctional.”
He recalled the building of the Cherry Plain School in the 1980s, which was presented to the voters as a $3 million project but ended up being an $8 million project. He said the year after it was approved school taxes increased 69% and following year another 33%, which meant that School taxes more than doubled in two years. He predicted that something similar will happen with the recently approved $6.8 million renovation of the Berlin Elementary School.
He said there are 460 less students in the District than there were ten years ago, but there are the same number of employees. According to Klein, there are 823 students now in the District. If you divide the current budget by that number, it costs $21,220 per student, which Klein feels is way too much. He also said that the Berlin teachers are the second highest paid in Rensselaer County.
Klein said in addition to being expensive, the Berlin District performs poorly in educating the students. He said the District is ranked 75th out of 85 districts in the Capital District Business Review’s rankings, which puts it in the 87th percentile among area districts. He said the dropout rate is 29%.
Klein urged the people of Petersburgh to learn more about this and to seek alternatives to continuing as part of the Berlin District. He asked the Town of Petersburgh to hold a referendum on this.
Supervisor Krahforst said the Board has heard what Klein had to say, and would consider it.
Reappointment Miscue
The meeting began with a complaint from Planning Board Vice Chairman Tim Church about the reappointment of Planning Board Chairman Dave Miller. Miller’s previous term as a member of the Planning Board has expired. Church said Miller is willing to serve another term on the Planning Board but apparently was not willing to fill out what Church called an “employment application” that was sent to him. Church was outraged that someone who has worked as long and hard as Miller has at an unpaid position would be asked to apply for a reappointment, and Church asked the Board to reappoint Miller without any application.
The Town Board went into an unscheduled executive session to discuss the matter, saying it was a “personnel” matter. When they came back Supervisor Krahforst said the Board has not heard anything from Miller, and they don’t feel they can appoint him until he at least tells them directly that he would like to serve another term. Krahforst said that so far he has only “hearsay” from Church about Miller’s desire to continue on the Planning Board. He would like to hear from Miller himself.
The Town ran a legal notice in this newspaper in December asking “interested parties” to submit applications for Town appointments, which apparently includes incumbents.
Citizen Committees
Supervisor Krahforst reminded everyone that he has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday, January 25, at 7 pm to set up several citizens committees, and he hopes volunteers willing to serve on those committees will come to the meeting and offer their services. Committees topics include one on an Ethics policy, one on alternative energy possibilities for the Town buildings, one to gather Town laws into a coherent whole and one to help with the Water District.[/private]