Voters and officials in school districts everywhere are bound by the same rules: school districts have two chances to present a palatable budget to voters. If both are turned down, then a contingency budget calculated by a state-set formula must be used.
Voters in the Schenectady City School District had a difficult choice to make last week: a second and final budget proposal with a 5.8 percent tax levy hike, or a $160.6 million contingency budget with a 15.8 percent tax hike.
In they end, they narrowly approved the proposed budget, but now two assemblymen are moving to close what they say is the loophole in school budget law that allowed the contingency to soar so high in the first place.
James Tedisco, R-Schenectady, and George Amedore, R-Rotterdam, introduced the School Budget Vote Fairness Act on Monday, June 22. They say it will keep voters statewide from being presented with choices like that in Schenectady.
There’s a potential for this to happen in any community, and I don’t think our constituents want to be threatened by an 11 percent increase when they voted down the original budget, said Tedisco.
While a 4 percent increase cap is already written into the contingency budget formula, a provision allowing schools to adjust above that cap for expected enrollment increases was the cause of the situation in Schenectady. The lawmakers’ legislation would not allow schools to exceed the cap under such circumstances.
The district planned for a 471-student increase in the contingency budget, a number based on a study from an independent consultant. Tedisco said that number was `inflated` by 200 in order to drive up the contingency budget.
`[The Schenectady contingency budget] broke the straw over the camel’s back,` said Amedore. `A contingency budget should be under the initial budget.`
Information provided by the state Education Department does indicate that a contingency budget is designed to be less than a budget turned down by voters. A department representative said the department has not yet received the bill text and could not comment on it.
But the district says it had little to do with figuring the contingency budget, and it simply adhered to guidelines set in state law.
`We followed the law as it stands. If they want to change the law, we’ll follow that,` said Superintendent Eric Ely.
Ely said that the school district has experienced an 800-student increase in enrollment over the past two years, in part because of charter school closures and fluctuating populations. While the enrollment study predicted a large enrollment increase, he maintains it was accurate.
`They look five years into the past and five years into the future using their methods, and we selected the one that was most accurate,` he said.
Instead of pulling more money from taxes to pay for more students under a contingency budget, said Ely, the district will cut costs and increase class sizes under the adopted budget.
Tedisco and Amedore maintain that the present law allows the opportunity for schools everywhere to pigeonhole voters should they choose to do so.
`What we don’t need is any school board in the state of New York to threaten or to hang over the heads of the taxpayers huge tax increases if they don’t vote in favor of the initial budget,` said Amedore.
Amedore said that he’s meeting with the Education Department to identify the specific methods to use in instating the cap.
Tedisco hinted that the bill could be a step towards larger reform like a property tax cap, which he favors. Under a tax cap, schools would be barred from proposing large year-to-year budget increases. The most typically suggested cap is 4 percent.“