North Rockland Making Cuts To School Service To Close $10 Million Budget Gap

WEST HAVERSTRAW, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- It's a tax-cap blow back,

A suburban school district is slashing services in the face of a budget crunch and parents are angry.

CBS 2's Lou Young reports parents are worried about their children's education as the North Rockland district takes drastic action to close a $10 million budget gap.

The closing of two elementary schools and the redrawing of district lines means some students now enrolled at schools close to their home will be bussed to the other side of the county.

"My neighborhood where I live now is not the neighborhood that he will be going into, it'll be completely different," parent Trevi Perez said. "Some of his friends and peers that he's grown up with since kindergarten and before will no longer be going to school with him."

Administrators say the new state property tax hike cap is forcing their hand.

"We're on a journey to plan a better way to have the best program we can," Assistant Superintendent Jim McWire said. "I don't think there's a superintendent in New York State who doesn't have a challenge right now."

Most people thing the taxes are already too high but those with kids being sent to new schools aren't so sure.

"If it would take a little bit more tax to send my daughter to the school I selected…I'd pay it," parent Stephanie Yules, whose daughter Jessica may not even go to school next year, said.

"They have a stable system, I don't know why they're changing," Rhoda Sherman said.

One budget option is to cancel kindergarten.

The reality is next year there will be fewer schools and larger classrooms in this suburban district.

One educator told Young flatly that whatever they do someone is going to be unhappy and probably with good reason.

The North Rockland school district encompasses the towns of Ramapo, Haverstraw and Stony Point.

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