Albany School Board goes into early morning hours

It continues to be a long night for members of the Albany School Board as they look to make some important budget decisions.

The regularly scheduled meeting of the board was still in session well after midnight.

The board will eventually vote to determine whether to extend the superintendent's contract, and will also consider asking all district employees to participate in a pay freeze.

School Board President Dan Egan says the main focus of the Thursday meeting was supposed to be weighing the pros and cons of asking district employees to keep their pay 'as is,' in other words no raise. But, thanks to an inflammatory radio ad launched on Thursday, all eyes were on the superintendent instead.

Either way, Egan tried to keep the matter of a potential wage freeze a focus before the meeting.

Egan said, "We are appealing to all staff, not just teachers, but all staff, to take a voluntary pay freeze for this coming year just as the superintendent has done for the last two years, and as our administrators did last year."

And during the meeting, that plan got some support.

At the podium, Albany resident Barry Lawson said, "I would like to applaud the superintendent, and hopefully the teacher's union, and the staff, for considering the freeze. As a taxpayer for the last 25 years, it's going to impact us all."

And while Albany Public School Teacher's Association President Cathy Corbo says she understands money is tight, she is questioning the timing of a possible pay freeze, because the request comes right before contract negotiations.

But it is Superintendent Ray Colucciello's contract extension that's really causing a controversy.

That radio ad launched Thursday says, in part, "Dan Egan should call off this sneaky vote (about Colucciello's contract extension). Governor Cuomo is right, Dan Egan and Superintendent Colucciello are. It's time to get school spending under control."

The radio ad was paid for by the Coalition for Education Reform and Accountability. It claims that that the district deciding whether to extend Colucciello's $170,000 annual contract on Thursday night, was a knee jerk reaction to Gov. Cuomo's newly proposed state-wide superintendent salary cap.

But Egan says the ad is completely inaccurate.

"This (contract extension) was under discussion several times before the idea of a superintendents cap was ever on our radar screen at all," he said.

Egan goes on to say that Colucciello's salary has been and will continue to be below Cuomo's proposed cap of $175,000 per year. The school board president also contends that the ad is incorrect in saying that the superintendent draws any benefits from Albany's tax base, and that the $80,000 per year pension he receives as a retired superintendent is perfectly legal.

About the ad itself, and its allegations, Egan said, "It in no way affects our integrity. I think it's unfortunate that people resort to personal attacks when we ought to be talking about the merits of public policy."

As of 12 a.m. Friday morning the Albany School Board had been meeting for five hours, and was still two agenda items away from discussing and voting on the superintendent's contract, and three agenda items away from discussing and voting on the potential wage freeze request.

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