Archive: Opinions

This letter is in response to Mr. Baird’s letter to the editor in the Lansing Star titled “School Budget Entitlement?” from April 4th.  As a school board member and Lansing tax payer, I would like to clarify some of the concerns that were raised in the letter.

The process of developing and explaining the budget process began in September 2013 with Ms. King, Lansing School Business Administrator, and Ms. Pettograsso, Lansing School Superintendent, breaking down and explaining each section of the budget at the School Board Meetings.  Each meeting, a different section of the budget was broken down into layman’s terms and explained to both the general public and the board.  While school finance, as dictated by NYS Law, is complex, Mary June has done an excellent job of both simplifying the terms, process, and details so that it can be understood.  All of the presentations since September  are available on the school website under the “District/Board of Education” tabs.  In addition, detailed costs such as “Contractual Expenses”, “Non-Instructional Salaries”, and “Materials & Supplies” are detailed in the budget status reports which are generally presented each month and are also on the website.

For the tax rate, NYS law specifies that the school board in April and public in May are voting on the budget amount, not the tax levy nor rate increase.  While the district continues to estimate and publish what the tax rate may be in the March/April timeframe, it is not established until July after the Tompkins County Assessment office presents the annual assessment roll.  With the information from the  assessment roll  in July, and also under NYS law, the school board will vote on the levy,  issuing a warrant to direct the tax collector to collect this levy from property taxes.  No school district votes on the tax rate, as this process is dictated by law for all school districts.

To clarify Mr. Baird’s comments of “…proposed budget increase shown was only 2.06%, while the actual tax increase was 6.7%...”, the 2.06% increase from last year was the actual budget increase as stated.  The 6.7% increase was the levy increase last year.

The levy increase rarely matches the tax increase, and as Mary June has stated in many presentations, this difference is very significant when there are large changes in the PILOT agreements, of which the Cayuga Operating Company (aka AES) is part.  When there are large changes in a PILOT agreement, there is a significant change to the tax levy.  Therefore, even though the District held the total budget increase last year to just 2.06% increase, the impact to the levy was greater at 6.7% primarily due to the decrease in the PILOT of the Cayuga Operating Company in addition to reductions in state aid.

For the 2014/2015 year, we are projecting:


• a budget increase of 4.84%, not connected to the revenue increases
• a property tax levy increase of  4.79%
• a Combined Levy – is only increasing at a rate of 2.46%
• a tentative tax rate increase of 3.61% (As previously stated – this is not firm due to the assessment office’s final numbers not complete until July.

As a school board member, I accept full responsibility for the budget as proposed each year, as the 4-month process asks for board member guidance as to the choices that should be made that affect the budget.   There are many budget items which the school board cannot immediately affect, which are highlighted in many budget presentations each board meeting.  These do include the retirement fund increases, health care rate increases, and some BOCES costs.  The additional factors such as the Cayuga Operating Company value decreases, the NY state aid decreases, and mandates, do affect what Lansing tax payers must pay.  There is no control over these with the exception of Lansing residents helping lobby our State government to try to limit the impact of these factors.  It should be noted that Lansing’s lobbying efforts over the past several months have been noticed by our local politicians and the State Aid has increased over what was originally projected in the initial state budget proposals.

Lansing School District has, in fact, implemented many cost savings over the past 5 years, including multiple Energy Performance Contracts, negotiated health care cost-sharing with our unions, employee reductions, athletic reductions, and significant transportation cost reductions.  As a reference point, Lansing Central School District was named as one of the lowest Administrative Cost districts in NYS.  Prudent fiscal management has resulted in an average school district tax rate increase of just 1.6% over the past 7 years.  The Business Office is in a constant state of searching for cost-savings in all District operations, with an eye to maintaining the outstanding educational opportunities that the community desires and supports in the annual budget vote.  Other options that could reduce the budget include increasing class size, reduce staffing, and cut programs, however, based on feedback, we are not proposing this at this time.

Also, a clarification of the recent Lansing School Tax Rate increases – for 2011/2012 was 3.35%, for 2012/2013 was 3.87%, and 2013/2014 was 4.26%.

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify some of this information.

Tom Robinson
Lansing
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