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Last week the Lansing Board of Education voted to approve a $30,067,200 budget for the 2018-19 school year.  That brings the district budget above $30 million for the first time, a 3.14% rise from last year's budget.  But School Superintendent Chris Pettograsso said that growth in the tax assessment, including new growth from new building developments, is offsetting losses from decreasing PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) agreements.

"Despite the decrease in the power plant, our growth is keeping up with our budget rollover," she said. "We knew that decrease was coming this year, but based on our growth, even though the levy is going up this year the levy is covering it."

The budget was slightly higher than school board members previously considered.  The rise was caused by new students with special needs moving into the district, and also because of $35,000 in Safe Act aid funding the District will receive from New York State.

Budgeting for salaries is up by 2.75%, and non-salaries are up 4.6%.  BOCES costs will be very slightly lower, but the cost of benefits is rising by 6.73%.

"Benefits and salaries are, of course, always our largest increase due to contractual obligations," said School Business Administrator Kate Heath.

Heath said the district will receive a bit more state aid than what was proposed in the Executive Budget.  She calculates Lansing will get $0,201,269, 4.6% more than last year.  There is no significant change in Federal aid anticipated, which only amounts to $20,000.  Miscellaneous revenues are expected to come in at $732,000, and $250,000 in appropriated fund balance dollars will be used by the Board Of Education to mitigate taxes.

That leaves property taxes.  $1,027,000 will come from PILOT agreements with local businesses.  That number is down by over 12% with further reductions in the value of the Cayuga Power Plant and Shops at Ithaca Mall.  That loss in PILOT revenue must be picked up by property tax payers who will ante up $18,836,930, a 3.79% rise from last year.

"Our PILOTs are still going down," Heath said. "That's because of the additional loss of the plant.  But our assessment values are increasing and making up for that.  Our property taxes will be going up by 3.79% overall, but it creates a very minor effect to the tax rate.  It's just an estimate, but we're looking at a 0.63% increase in the tax rate, and that's with a conservative estimate from the assessment office."

District voters will vote on whether or not to accept the budget in May.  The final tax levy and tax rate are set in July once the final numbers are received from the Tompkins County Assessment Department.

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