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School budget
results
Consequences of aid loss, rising costs felt in vote results
 When
the smoke cleared after Tuesday’s school budget vote, three of
HFM BOCES 15 component school districts saw proposed spending
plans rejected by their respective voters. Amsterdam,
Broadalbin-Perth and Northville Boards of Education will
reconvene to discuss their next steps after the defeat of their
proposed budgets.
The other 12 component districts saw voters approve their
budgets for 2011-12. School districts across the state wrestled
with a historic cut in state aid and rapidly escalating costs of
employee benefits while constructing spending plans for next
year.
HFM BOCES districts eliminated more than 144 positions in
2011-12 spending plans. In many districts, salary concessions by
administrators, teachers and staff along with an increase in the
use of reserve funds helped restrain the impact on local tax
levies.
HFM BOCES school districts presented voters with budgets that
averaged a 0.6 percent increase in spending and 5.56 percent
hike in the tax levy, on average. Two districts – Northville and
Amsterdam – proposed budgets carrying 20.7 and 16.5 percent tax
levy increases respectively. Both plans were rejected.
“We are here to support those districts whose budget proposals
failed, and congratulate those districts that passed their
budgets,” HFM BOCES District Superintendent Dr. Patrick Michel
said.
Statewide support for school district budgets
New York State voters approved 93.6 percent of school district
budgets on Tuesday, May 17, according to an analysis by the New
York State School Boards Association.
Initial statewide results gathered by NYSSBA indicate voters
have passed 634 of 677 school district budgets. The number of
budgets defeated was 43. Two districts have yet to report.
Last year, taxpayers approved 92 percent of school district
budgets. The average passage rate since 1969 is 84 percent.
“Voters realized that school officials did all they could to
limit spending and taxes this year,” said NYSSBA Executive
Director Timothy G. Kremer.
What happens when a budget is voted down
When a proposed budget is defeated, the district can hold
another vote and offer residents either the same or a revised
budget, or it can immediately adopt a contingency budget that
puts a cap on new spending. If a budget is twice defeated, the
district must adopt a contingency budget, and there can be no
more votes to restore the eliminated funding for the 2011-12
school year. The majority of HFM BOCES districts' proposed
budgets were already at contingency levels when proposed to the
voters.
Under a contingency budget, the state requires that the district
not spend money on certain supplies, nonessential maintenance or
new capital projects except in an emergency. The administrative
portion of a contingent budget may be no higher than the
administrative portion of the previous year. In addition, any
community use of school property would require a charge to cover
associated costs. |
