- By Dan Veaner
- News
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Few taxpayers attended the Lansing Central School District budget hearing on Zoom Tuesday, which made it hard for Board of Education members and school officials to gauge how the budget vote will go next Tuesday. The board is asking voters to approve a $31,554,110 budget, plus three student transport vehicles at a cost not to exceed $300,000. Because busses are on a replacement schedule, the annual expense is not costly to taxpayers, because as debt for old busses falls off, it is used to purchase the new ones. But the general budget tends to rise each year, and the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a number of challenges for school districts across New York State.
"'A rock and a hard place' is a good description, with having potential cuts in the future for this year's budget is really a unique and unfortunate for us," School Superintendent Chris Pettograsso said. "We tried to really minimize the impact as best we could. There are very few schools that don't go up to that tax cap to get as much money as they can to support program. We listened to our community. We listened to the board and we minimized that. Certainly we're not going near that tax cap. We're just taking what we need to do to keep those contracts valid and to support our school program."
The proverbial 'rock and hard place' are the direct result of the coronavirus pandemic and how it has impacted the burgeoning New York State deficit. The rock is potential state aid reductions estimated to become as high as 20% over the course of three evaluation periods during the year. At the end of each period the State is to determine how much, if any, is to be cut from schools. So it is impossible for school officials to plan, because there is no way to know exactly how much state aid they will really receive. The 'hard place' is that so many New Yorkers have lost their jobs, which will make paying the property tax a hardship. Pettograsso says school administrators empathize with the situations district taxpayers find themselves faced with.
On top of that, many school districts add the maximum amount to their levy each year, because the tax cap calculation uses this year's levy amount to help determine how much more they can levy next year. If they levy less this year, they loose some flexibility in how much they can levy next year. Pettograsso stressed that despite that, Lansing has chosen not to raise its levy to the full amount allowed, to be sensitive to monsy-stressed taxpayers.
| Correction 5/6 - The article originally erroniously reported estimates of $53 for $100,000 homeowners and $106 for $200,000. | ||
Even with $740,500 in cuts to some programs and staffing, School Business Administrator Kate Heath explained that contractual obligations have forced a rise in the budget. She said salary and benefits alone constitute a $900,000 increase. She and Pettograsso explained that they have tried har to limit the impact of that.
"We tried to limit those obligations by not filling positions and by combining and making those reductions to minimize as best we can with keeping what we view and what our community views as a strong program," Pettograsso said. "There are other areas we certainly could have reduced, but, um, we're, we'll be looking at that in the future."
Here is a summary of cuts the district has proposed:
- $56,000 Business Office Staff
- $32,000 ES Office Staff
- $58,000 Enrichment Program
- $80,000 World Language FTE
- $50,000 Curriculum Projects & Professional Development
- $130,000 Aquatics Instruction
- $93,000 Reduce 5th Grade FTE
- $93,000 Reduce 6th Grade FTE
- $80,000 Restructure HS AIS Support
- $22,500 Shared Library Clerk
- $46,000 HS Clerical Staff
The staffing cuts are being achieved by not filling retirees' positions and consolidating responsibilities of some remaining employees, which will not result in layoffs. At least for now, because of the uncertainty about state aid.
"I will say the bulk of our expenses are in salaries and benefits, and we are contractually obligated to follow those contracts," Heath said. "Prior to looking at restructuring and making reductions, just our salary and benefits constituted a $900,000 increase. So we have done some significant work to, to cut back on that and to try to make this a palatable budget as much as possible."
If a budget is not passed by voters school districts have the option of proposing it again, or an amended version of it for a re-vote. If the second budget also fails at the polls the State imposes a 'contingency budget'. But Heath told the school board that because the State pushed back the date for school budget votes,there is not enough time to legally give notice of a second vote befor the date the contingency budget has to kick in.
"Our vote is scheduled for June 9th, the re-vote date did not change with the new legislation," she said. "So that revolt date is still June 23rd, which is a two week difference. The logistics of getting ballots done and printed and mailed out and return is just impossible. So I don't see how any school districts will be able to go out with a re-vote if their budget fails. We would probably have to go straight to a contingent budget if our budget fails."
School Board President Christine Iacobucci said that imposing this impossible vote schedule has to be illegal, because it puts schools in an impossible position if their budgets are not ratified by the taxpayers.
"Here is here's my concern," Iacobucci said. "Some people are not going to read all the materials explaining why we're supporting our community and our children and families the way we are. And they're going to might see this as an opportunity to just say, 'no, we're stretched. The country is in chaos. No.' And if we have to go from what we've all worked hard to say... this is what we need in our community... to this contingent budget, that will be absolutely horribly devastating to us, our children, our families, and everybody who lives in Lansing, because it will have an impact on all of us."
Heath explained the consequences to Lansing of a contingency budget.
"A contingent budget requires 0% tax levy increase," she said. "So whatever we raised in taxes last year, we would only be limited to that amount for next year. It restricts money in certain areas, a community use of facilities without reimbursement, no new equipment, no non-essential maintenance, no field trips, no student supplies and no capital expenditures except in emergencies. If that does not constitute enough expenses to bring us back down to that 0% tax levy levy, we would need to look at other expenses such as athletics, extracurricular activities, certain non mandated transportation and any other non mandated programs, activities, or purchases. For us for next year that would be pretty significant. It would be a decrease in budget year, over year of 660,000. And we would require additional cuts of $1.4 million."
In recent history school budgets have passed, but the pandemic has created so many uncertainties and unintended consequences of measures put in place to mitigate the impact for state citizens that school officials, not just in Lansing, have to be nervous about their budget votes.
Another difference this year is that because of lockdown rules, all Lansing school district voters have been sent mail-in ballots. That may mean that more people will vote because they don't have to go to the school campus to vote in person on a day that is not what people generally to be 'election day' on the first Tuesday in November. And there is no way to predict what impact that will have one way or another.
In addition to the budget, three school board members are up for reelection, including Iacobucci, Tony Lombardo, and Brenda Zavaski. The Lansing Community Library board member vote is also included on the school ballot. Candidates for the library board are Deborah Huber-Hwang, Darcey Rigdon, and Isabelle Schweitzer.
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