Budget Information

Questions? Ask at virtual Town Hall, Tuesday, June 2, 8:30-9:30 p.m. See instructions.

BUDGET-AT-A-GLANCE:

Budget amount: $63,677,081 - down from original proposed budget by over $630,000

Property taxes to be collected: $54,978,292

Tax increase: 2.99%, an increase of approx. $600 per $1,000,000 in assessed value

Current proposed budget cannot be altered. It has already been adopted and voters have begun voting.

Key points:

• Contractual salary & benefit increases as mandated by teachers contract and NYS.
• 2 new teachers as required by NYS mandates and special education IEPs.
• Mandated transportation costs increased by over 40% per student.
• Using almost $2.3 MM in reserves from three reserve funds.

What’s different this year is our ability to hold a second vote if this budget is not approved:

• By law the district has only until June 30th to adopt and pass a budget.
• Given legal requirements and logistical challenges with mail-in voting, we believe there is no practical way to run a second vote prior to June 30th. District lawyers concur with this assessment.
• If a budget isn’t passed by the voters, a contingency budget must be adopted by June 30th, and the tax levy is limited to the 2019-2020 amount.

A 0% increase in the tax levy will force the school board to balance a number of cuts to make up the $1.2 million difference in the budget:

• Personnel reductions - using Last In First Out mandated rules, we would need to cut multiple teachers who are new to the district and shift teachers between schools and grades, likely leading to increases in class sizes at all three schools. We may also see reduced electives and more limited scheduling flexibility at EHS.
• Athletics and co-curriculars - these budgets can’t be sustained at current levels if we are to keep class size at or close to current numbers. Many athletic and co-curricular programs could be affected.

Potential further cuts in state aid:

Please note that we must create our budget using the state aid amount that the state provides. This year we have been told that there may be future cuts in state aid over the course of the year. Such a cut, after adoption of the budget, is unprecedented. We cannot change the tax levy to adjust for those reductions in state aid so they will need to come from our fund balance or from further reductions in expenses during the 2020-2021 school year.