W ith the 2008-09 school year off and running, the superintendants of schools will have some good things and bad things to look forward to.

Ellenville's Superintendant Lisa Wiles and her staff are already racing against the clock to improve energy efficiency across the 220,000 square feet of their domain. In Pine Bush, there's a new Superintendant of Schools: welcome, Phillip Steinberg…hope you're ready for a challenge. By now, you've had enough chats with former interim Superintendant Bill Bassett and seen enough files to know what you're up against.

On the bright side, in another week or so (now that they're delayed — again), the first of Crispell Middle School's expansion modules will roll up Route 302 on their way to installation. With luck, all eight will be in place and open before the first snows fall.

Also, the teachers' and administrators' contracts are in place, and the Board of Education is humming along in a spirit of comity and discipline to back you up.

Ellenville's BOE is solid and supportive, too, but Superintendant Wiles and her negotiators will sit with the teachers to talk about a new contract soon.

Still, that should be doable. So, everything's fine, right? We're all sailing along on calm seas into a bright future.

Well, it might be so, if there weren't a vast, dark wall of cloud looming up on the Albany horizon. The debt hurricane that shook Wall Street to the core has rolled up the Hudson, and it's going to be a force 5 fiscal blast by the time it reaches us. The state is paying the price for becoming overly dependent on the money engines of Wall Street and our school districts are going to feel it. Pine Bush takes $55 Million a year in state aid, and Ellenville needs $21 Million.

On top of that, there's the price of heating oil, and diesel for the buses to worry about. Up to $4.75 a gallon one month, down to $3.50 a gallon the next, up to....well, who knows what it will be by Christmas? The only thing we can be certain of is that it's going to be a lot more this year than it was last year.

We know the schools haven't been sitting on their hands, waiting for the worst. Ellenville had an energy audit from NYSERDA, and Pine Bush is looking to get one too. But ultimately, whatever savings that can be made, those will be clawbacks from a pretty big wave moving in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, there's no escaping the storm ripping through Albany.

So, Lisa and Phil, we know you're concentrating hard on this. And we're sure you'll be thinking about how to produce budgets that keep the lights on in the schools while winning the budget votes next May. Ellenville's teachers may have to accept less than they'd like from a district already reeling from the economic tempest.

How you satisfy all the constituencies arguing for more while you have less to offer is going to take some magic, not to mention discipline, creativity, and, we would suggest, openness. Secrecy breeds rancor. The only way to get through this gathering storm is to keep everyone in the loop and fully informed. Educated voters know what they're voting about. That leaves less room for ill-informed, generalized anger about high taxes.

Make no mistake: even if you can pull white rabbits out of several hats, school taxes are going to go up, and in times like these, that will not be welcome news.

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