Junkets and junk food for members of Buffalo Board of Education
City School Board racks up big bills for travel, dinners
Published: April 19, 2009, 12:30 am
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Tune in to public-access TV just about any time, and there’s a good chance you’ll catch the Buffalo Board of Education in action during a televised meeting.
You’ll see board members talking, often debating, sometimes arguing, and ultimately voting on the weightiest issues affecting the 37,000 kids in the city’s public schools.
There’s also plenty that you won’t see.
You won’t see board members and top administrators digging into a buffet every Wednesday before meetings. Last week, for instance, they could choose from egg rolls, shrimp lo mein, General Tso’s chicken, pepper steak, sesame chicken, cheesecake, cookies and flan, among other goodies, before they sat down to discuss finance matters.
Other weeks, board members enjoy meatballs, turkey, chicken, potatoes, corn and salad. Sometimes, it’s steak fajitas and chicken wings.
Besides the $300 or so that’s spent each week on meals for the board and administrators who stay late for meetings, another $100 a week keeps the board’s kitchen in City Hall stocked with soft drinks, chips and cookies.
But the $33,000 spent on meals and snacks for the board in the past year and a half pales in comparison to the board’s travel budget, which was more than twice that amount.
Some board members over the past 18 months have traveled to conferences and lobby days to places such as Atlanta; Nashville, Tenn.; Orlando, Fla.; Miami; Las Vegas; Houston; Seattle; San Diego; Albany; New York City; and Washington, D. C.
All totaled, taxpayers have spent more than $100,000 since September 2007 on food and travel for the nine members of the Buffalo Board of Education.
That may not seem like a lot of money, considering the district’s budget exceeds $700 million. But some people question why a district that annually complains it doesn’t have enough money for its students, who live in the third-poorest city in the nation, spends so much on these perks.
“Little things add up, and it’s symbolic as well,” said James Ostrowski, who is in charge of a taxpayer movement called Free New York. “I think this sort of optional spending should end. It’s the city spending our money. I would hope they could rein that spending in.”
Paying the caterer
Before one meeting this winter, board members and administrators dined on a $400 buffet provided by Joyce Livingston, who has catered board meetings for more than a decade.
The meal was supplemented by $215 in groceries from Wegmans, to provide drinks and snacks to keep the board’s kitchen stocked: Hawaiian Punch and two kinds of Coke; cherries, bananas and red and green grapes; four kinds of cookies; three kinds of potato chips; two kinds of Doritos; and two pounds of bulk candy, among other goodies.
That was fairly typical for a Buffalo School Board meeting, district records indicate. In the past year and a half, Livingston has catered 34 meetings, at an average cost of $319 a meeting.
Board members say many of them rush to the meetings right after work each Wednesday, without stopping for dinner. Often, they say, meetings last four hours or more.
“It’s not a high-end buffet, and it’s not a lot of it, either. It serves like 20, 30 people maybe,” said board member Ralph Hernandez, who said he is not the only diabetic board member who must eat at regular intervals for health reasons. “The administrators eat there, too, the superintendent and associate superintendents. Most of us don’t even eat it. We’re sick of it, and it’s the same stuff all the time.”
Besides the twice-monthly Wednesday evening board meetings, board members also attend committee meetings on opposite Wednesdays. Food is available at many of those, as well.
While Livingston is the primary caterer, food is sometimes ordered from various local restaurants, including Gramma Mora’s, a Mexican restaurant on Hertel Avenue; Wah Sing, a Chinese restaurant on West Ferry; Chris’ New York Sandwich Company on Delaware Avenue; Chick-N-Pizza Party Works on Abbott Road; and Dough Bois Pizza on Niagara Street.
Between the board’s expense line and the superintendent’s fund for board and committee meetings, the district spent $11,693 in 93 visits at Wegmans in a year and a half — an average of $125 per trip.
Candy is a favorite. Taxpayers supplied more than 260 pounds of bulk candy for the board and administrators in a year and a half.
While most board members eat the food that’s provided, at least one does not.
“I don’t eat at those meetings. I refuse to,” Lou Petrucci said. “You can’t ask people to take cuts in their medical insurance or discuss potential layoffs if we’re getting a catered meal. It just doesn’t ring true.”
Brown-bagging it
Buffalo seems to be the only major urban board of education in upstate New York to enjoy such a spread at meetings. Once in a while, the Syracuse school board has pizza during especially long meetings.
In Rochester, even a pizza is more than board members can hope for.
“Food for meetings? Not happening. Nobody’s paying for you to eat. Bring your own lunch,” said Rochester School Board President Malik Evans. “If we have a daylong retreat, once or twice a year, there’ll be a small breakfast in the morning. That’s it.”
Buffalo School Board members say they’re paid very little for their 10 to 40 hours of work each week, including time at board and committee meetings, talking to constituents, attending events, and reading and researching.
“Keep in mind we get a stipend of $5,000,” said Christopher L. Jacobs. “If you convert that to hourly, it’s probably 30 cents an hour that we make.”
Syracuse School Board members make $7,500 a year. In Rochester, School Board members for many years earned $15,000 annually. That recently changed. Rochester board members now make $22,981, an amount that is set at 75 percent of a City Council member’s salary. The Rochester School Board president makes $30,481, in keeping with the City Council president’s higher salary.
In Yonkers — a Westchester County district with 23,000 students, about two-thirds as many as in Buffalo’s public school system — School Board members are unpaid volunteers, as are board members for all the suburban school boards in the state.
Most area suburban school boards either have no food at their meetings or get a tray of snacks and beverages from the school cafeteria or the PTA.
In West Seneca, one of the three largest suburban districts in the area, the School Board president or the superintendent usually makes food for the board.
“We actually do it ourselves,” said board President Carol A. Jarczyk. “[Superintendent Jean M. Kovach] will bake or I bring veggies and dip. Last time, she brought in cheese and crackers. One time we had a board member who made a casserole, and I made dessert. One time the assistant superintendent made muffins.”
On the road again
Full meals aren’t the only perks that set Buffalo apart from other urban boards of education.
Buffalo board members travel much more, too.
In Buffalo, board members spent $68,266 on hotels, airfare, meals, registration fees and other travel expenses since September 2007. That figure, though, is not comprehensive, because records for several of the trips did not include expenditures for hotel rooms or air travel.
Once estimates for those costs are included for all the trips, the figure for board travel during that period exceeds $90,000.
Other urban school boards in the state spend a fraction of what Buffalo does on travel. The other boards lobby lawmakers and attend state and national conferences, too, but not nearly as much.
The entire travel budget one recent year in Yonkers was $3,000, for instance. No more than two board members can go on any one trip.
Syracuse board members average two trips a year. In Rochester, where the school district has as many students as Buffalo does, the board limits its travel, also.
“We travel very rarely,” said Evans, the Rochester School Board president, who said he goes out of state once every year or two on board business. “I try to minimize the amount of travel expense we do toward the district.”
Buffalo’s School Board President Mary Ruth Kapsiak, Vice President Catherine Collins, and board members Vivian Evans and Pamela D. Perry-Cahill have each been to at least nine places outside Western New York since September 2007, including Atlanta, New York City, Washington, D. C., Orlando, Miami, Las Vegas, and Houston, according to district records.
All four of those board members declined to comment for this story.
“It seems it’s just become a travel club,” said board member Catherine Nugent Panepinto. “What I hear back from [the people who go] are not ideas of what we can do. It’s more about the dinner or the shopping opportunity. I don’t think I’ve ever heard back, ‘Here’s an idea we can pursue,’ or ‘Here’s a contact we can develop.’ ”
Going in a group
On most trips over the past year and a half, at least four board members went. In some cases, as many as six went on the same trip, including two excursions to New York City and one to Orlando.
Some say it’s time to limit the number of people who go on each trip.
“I’m of the belief that, especially in this environment, there’s no reason why one or two people can’t go to a conference and report back to the rest of the board,” said Jacobs, who, like Panepinto, has not traveled outside the region on board business recently.
In years past, according to one former board member, people shared rooms whenever possible. These days, each board member always gets his or her own hotel room, with the average cost about $200 a night.
Many past and current board members say travel is invaluable for networking and discovering new ideas. Former board President Marlies A. Wesolowski, for instance, says programs such as full-day kindergarten and the Emerson School of Hospitality were the result of board members seeing successful programs in other districts.
“Had board members not traveled, not participated in various associations, they might not have learned about them. We might not be offering those things in Buffalo,” said Wesolowski, who added that she was always “judicious” in her board travel. “Good things can come out of those trips and the knowledge you garner from going on those trips.”
Superintendent James A. Williams agrees. He would like to see the board travel more, he says.
“When I came here, people didn’t go any place. That’s a detriment for the city,” Williams said. “This board needs to get out more and see what’s happening in the world. Buffalo is behind on a lot of things, academically and professionally.”
mpasciak@buffnews.com
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