After the revised state budget was approved, the South Colonie Central School District found itself getting more than it was expecting, but not as much as it needs.
The district held its scheduled second draft budget meeting Tuesday, April 1, at Saddlewood Elementary School to announce its revised budget and the additional $532,595 it would receive in state aid.
“We did get about $400,000 back, but I guess the bigger pictures is we’re still down $2.7 million this year,” said South Colonie Central School District Superintendent Jonathan Buhner.
“That’s where we were back in 2008. The state has taken away the ability to levy, and we’re hoping some legislation this year sets a time frame to end the GEA in the next two years … The GEA and the failure to restore that funding has really had a negative impact on funding throughout the state, ” added Buhner.
The revised state budget includes a Foundation Aid increase for South Colonie of another $198,204 and a legislative member item grant of $100,000 from Assemblyman Phil Steck.
The increase in aid brings the budget to $95,224,128, an increase of $2,891,128 from the 2013-14 school year. The first draft of the budget on March 18 had the budget at $94,724,156. The tax levy increase under the current budget is 2.64 percent, which is under the tax cap of 2.66, requiring only a simple majority vote to pass.
The additional funding will help to restore staff positions that the district considered cutting under the first budget. It will also afford the district the opportunity to look at programs that have been cut in the past and see what programs they can bring back.
“We’ll be working the next few days to see where revenue is available and looking for restorations, if possible. We’re at a working standpoint right now. We’re going to take the revenue we’re expecting and look at what programs we can restore,” said Buhner.
The district originally anticipated the budget would be much lower and expected to receive only $182,000 in state aid. The district planned to receive much less in funding, so there wouldn’t be any surprises in the event they did not receive what they needed.
“We did better than what we believed we were going to receive by about $400,000. It’s a step in the right direction, but we’ve lost $17 million in five years. It’s better than our expectations. Our estimate was very conservative,” said Buhner.
Assistant Superintendent for Management Services and Strategic Planning Sherri Fisher said that the employee benefits are a significant portion of the budget and that due to the Affordable Care Act, health insurance costs have risen three to four percent.
An increase in enrollment of students in the special education department requires more finances, as some of students have special needs that require more attention and special equipment. Fisher also noted that there is an increase in tuition in the BOCES program.
“These are students who have been identified as special education students that require services either at an outside private setting or in a public school BOCES setting. We have significant growth in those areas. We have some new students and some young students coming in to the district that have some very challenging needs,” said Fisher.
The district will continue to work on and develop their budget until it is adopted on April 25, and the budget will be put to a vote May 20.