Residents in the Baldwinsville Central School District will be asked to pay an extra 1.82 percent in school taxes for the 2015-16 school year, according to the proposed budget presented April 13.
The total 2015-16 proposed budget is $98,973,915, a 2.15 percent increase over last year. Of that, the district is looking to raise $52,811,641 through local taxes. The majority of the increase comes in the form of contractual salary and benefit hikes, though BCSD Assistant Superintendent for Management Services James Rodems said other costs are included in the budget. Among those costs are four new positions.
“For two positions, we’re hiring two additional people that we’re calling learning coaches,” Rodems said. “Our teachers need more support because of Common Core. They’re going to be going around to the classrooms and helping our teachers who are struggling [with implementing the curriculum]. We thought with Common Core and APPR, we needed to invest in our teachers more, and this was one way to do that.”
The district will also be adding two more special education teachers at the elementary level.
“When our new superintendent [Dr. David Hamilton] came on board, he did an analysis of all of our supplemental special education services for all of the kids in our five elementary schools, and he wanted to make sure we had equal services for all of our special education students across all of our schools, the same staff and the same opportunities across the district,” Rodems said. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Rodems said the district may also have to add another kindergarten teacher, depending on final enrollment numbers.
“There may be spot increases here and there,” he said. “That’ll be driven by the numbers.”
In addition, the district will be continuing full-day kindergarten, though that will not cost taxpayers anything extra this year.
“We’ll still have state aid coming in for that,” Rodems said. “Next year it’ll be part of our general budget with no specific aid.”
The budget also provides for a Building Condition Survey (BCS) to be conducted by the district. The New York State Department of Education requires all school districts to conduct a BCS every five years.
“In 2016-17, we’ll get 80 percent of the cost of that back through state building aid,” Rodems said. “That’s going to guide our efforts going forward. We’re going to do an analysis of our roofs and building envelopes. We’ve got 90,000 square feet of roofs to look at. This report goes back to SED. Unless we make note of our needs in the report, we won’t get any projects approved. The state needs the BCS to judge our proposed projects worthy of aid, so it’s very important that we do this the right way and spend a lot of time and energy on this. We owe it to the taxpayers to make sure we’re doing what we should be doing.”
Voters will also be asked to vote on a $1,061,468 bus proposition to continue the district’s bus replacement program, as well as an energy performance contract not to exceed $3.5 million that will allow the district to make its buildings more energy efficient.
“We’ll get 82 percent through state aid, and the remaining 18 percent, we’ll make up over the next 18 years with energy savings,” Rodems said. “We’re really looking at… replacing all of our gym lighting with LED, which has dropped in cost and saves a ton of money annually. We can save $75,000 to $100,000 a year in energy costs. That’s two teachers’ salaries going forward in energy costs.”
In all, Rodems said he’s pleased with the budget, which is at the district’s tax cap.
“The 1.82 percent increase in the tax levy is at our tax cap level. That was our goal,” he said. “This is a good budget. I’m pretty psyched about it. I hope the voters agree on May 19. It’s the one survey I value the most.”
To hear the full budget presentation, visit ensemble.cnyric.org/Playlist/j5T2RcLd. The board of education will hold a public hearing on the budget at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 12.
