New Citizens Group to Advise School Board on Finance

Extra Meetings on Demographics, Budget; Tours, Programs Highlight MHS

by Joan Simon

(January 12, 2006) At the Mamaroneck School Board meeting on January 10, the community members of the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee (CFAC) were announced by Dr. Christine Grucci, Assistant. Superintendent for Operations, who will chair the group.

The newly appointed members are: Eric Berg, Bradford Burkett, Douglas Cliggott, Melvin Gardner, Emily Saltzman Hoffner, Michael Jacobson, Lisa Perry, Luis Quiros and Jeffrey Rogoff. Linnet Tse will serve as the school board liaison to the committee.

The committee of nine was selected from 27 applicants. Board vice-president Cecilia Absher said that the school board was “pleased with the level of interest and expertise” among the group. She noted that the board sought participants with a broad area of experience, including such fields as insurance, human resources, and public relations. “This committee is going to be asked to look at our business practices -- it is broader than just financial projections and budgets,” she explained. “We have a very nice range of expertise that is going to be useful and they will complement each other as they do this work”

The new committee continues a tradition in the district. A previous Financial Advisory Committee served until the late 1990s, according to its chair, Anne McAndrews, who is currently a Village of Larchmont Trustee. It advised the school board on issues that included the budget, teacher contracts and long-range planning. That group was an offshoot of the Citizens Advisory Budget Committee, formed earlier in the 1990s to help with budget planning.

The first meeting of the newly-established CFAC will be in February, when members will be asked to study and review the district’s annual budget. The committee is expected to operate for approximately two years.

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