Despite having no state aid numbers, South Colonie Central School District anticipates a 3 percent increase in its instructional budget.
Working from the assumption that state aid will remain the same for the district, South Colonie predicts to have a budget of about $96.5 million for the 2015-2016 school year.
The district’s projected budget gap has yet to be announced.
With about $26 million going to employee benefits, another $1.13 million is expected to go toward instructional expenses. This would mark the first time in recent years that no cuts will be made to instructional expenses.
State aid for schools hangs on whether the reforms proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo are passed, including changes to teacher evaluations, tenure requirements, expanding preschool programs, changes to charter schools and turnaround for lower performing schools. If the reforms are passed, schools will see a little over $1 billion in aid returned. If not, districts will receive only about $250 million, according to Assistant Superintendent Sherri Fisher.
“What we know is that we don’t know our state aid,” Fisher said. She said the 2015-2016 budget was drafted on the assumption that South Colonie will receive at least the same aid.
Fisher said the tax levy will fall below the state mandated 2 percent tax cap, landing around 1.89 percent with a possible change when state aid is released.
Next year, schools will see a significant reduction in contribution rates for Teachers’ Retirement System, falling from 17 percent to 13.26 percent, or about a $1.5 million reduction from previous years, according to Fisher. The Employee’s Retirement contribution also fell 2 percent, or $150,975. Fisher said that the reduction of the pension contributions will be used to help balance the budget as much as possible.
However, the most significant aspect of the 2015-2016 district budget is the lack of cuts in the instructional program funding. Teaching salaries for K-12 will see an increase for four new positions.
“It will be new to some of us that there are not cuts in the budget, which we have not seen in my lifetime of doing this,” said Assistant Superintendent Tim Backus. He said that, while some positions have been shifted from one line of the budget to another, no positions have been lost to attrition with retirements.
“We’re replacing whatever number of retirements there are and going out to find some more to fill some holes. It doesn’t mean that someone’s position may not be shifted around,” said Backus. In whole, however, there will be more teachers in the district than the current school year.
While unsure of exactly what the four new positions in teaching will include, “there is a priority system,” Backus said. Along with the changing Earth Science program, monitoring class sizes and changes to the English Second Language regulations are among the district’s main priorities for the coming school year.
Under a new state mandate, the English Second Language will become English as a New Language, or ENL. The changes in the program may include mandates for more staffing.
In the several areas where positions have been shifted, someone who may have been in a supervisory role is now in a “building role,” like a principal or assistant principal, Backus said, which accounts for decreases in some salary budgets and increases in others.
Significant jumps, like the $40,321 increase in the library salaries, can be attributed to funds that had been covered under federal grants going back to being covered by the school district. The purpose of covering the salaries under federal grants was to ensure positions could be kept in times of financial hardship and to maximize the grants, Backus said. Now that there’s more stability, he said, the district wants to take back control of those funds.
The budget also includes a $22,609 jump in secondary school supplies to cover the cost in supplies of the Earth Science program switching to the high school for the first time.
In spite of the hardship of having no state numbers, South Colonie is preparing and presenting its draft budget. The first presentation was scheduled for yesterday and the second draft presentation will be March 31 at 7 p.m. in the District Office.
