Residents in the North Syracuse Central School District are looking at a 2.03 percent tax increase for the 2015-16 school year.
The proposed budget was presented at the NSCSD Board of Education’s April 13 meeting by Associate Superintendent for Business Services Donald Keegan. The $150,862,724 budget represents a 3.6 percent increase over the 2014-15 fiscal year.
The bulk of the increase, as usual, comes in the form of salary, retirement and benefit costs. Health benefit costs are expected to increase approximately 10 percent, and the district’s contributions to the state’s retirement system are also expected to increase. In addition, 11 of 12 bargaining unit contracts are set to expire June 30. Energy costs have also gone up; though gas and transportation costs have gone down, the district’s favorable energy contracts have expired, and the new contracts are costlier.
In terms of staffing, the budget calls for a total of $270,114 in new positions. The proposal adds three full-time elementary teachers as well as half a special area position to maintain class sizes. It adds an ELL teacher to conform to new state requirements, consolidates a coaching position, eliminates one position due to retirement and declining enrollment and adds three other support positions.
In order to fund the increase, the budget calls for $81,884,213 to be raised through the tax levy, an increase of $1,626,272 over last year. That’s 2.03 percent, or $47.03 on a $100,000 house. The district will also use $750,000 of its fund balance.
North Syracuse will continue to provide full-day kindergarten, which the district first introduced in the 2013-14 school year, though conversion aid from the state was set to run out at the end of the 2014-15 school year. However, according to Assistant Superintendent for Management Donald Keegan, no additional taxpayer funds will be needed to fund the program.
“We knew all along that we were going to have a couple of years’ worth of aid. Once we got to the third year, we were going to have to make some decisions,” Keegan said. “In that context, when we got our [full state] aid package for this year, we got about a $3.5 million increase in aid.”
Keegan said the aid came at exactly the right time.
“We had a $2 million deficit going into the budget process. We presumed we weren’t going to get an increase in aid at all. We didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said. “Fortunately, we did get that increase. We were able to plug that deficit. We also made other adjustments in our revenues and tighten up some other places a little, and we were left with about $1.5 million in state aid that we were not going to use, and we said that was perfect to fund our full-day kindergarten.”
Thanks to that increase, the district will be able to continue to fund full-day kindergarten every year without an additional increase in taxes.
“State aid is basically the school district’s paycheck. That’s our income every year, between that and the tax levy,” Keegan said. “We got a raise in the form of the increase in state aid. We’re excited to be able to spend that raise on full-day kindergarten. Unless we see a cut in state aid, we’ll be able to keep full-day kindergarten without cutting programs or going back to the taxpayers.”
Though the gap elimination adjustment restoration allowed the NSCSD to keep full-day kindergarten and plug its deficit, the district’s state aid levels are still lower for the 2015-16 school year than they were in 2009-10. North Syracuse has lost a total of $42 million as a result of the gap elimination adjustment (GEA) since 2010-11. Budget cuts have also forced the district to reduce staff by 18.7 percent over the last six years, though enrollment has only declined by less than 8 percent.
“It’s not ideal,” Keegan said. “Obviously, we’d like to see that aid restored. But it’s a far cry from what we’ve been through for the last five years.”
In addition to the budget, voters will be asked to approve a bus proposition totaling $1,403,038. The proposal calls for the purchase of 10 65-passenger buses (two with luggage compartments), a 39-passenger diesel bus with three wheelchair positions, a hydraulic lift and air conditioning, a 48-passenger bus with air conditioning and a Suburban. The tax impact of the bus proposition is approximately $2 on a $100,000 home.
The district will hold a public hearing on the budget on Tuesday, May 5. The vote will take place Tuesday, May 19. Voters who live north of Route 481 should vote at Cicero Elementary, while those who reside south of Route 481 should vote at the district offices on Taft Road.
If you are not registered to vote in the district, you may do so at a special evening registration session hosted by the district from 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 5, at both polling places, the district office, located at 5355 W. Taft Road, and Cicero Elementary, located at 5979 Route 31. Residents can also register from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday through May 14 at the district office.
If you are not sure whether or not you are registered with the county or the district, or wish to obtain an application for an absentee ballot, call Connie Gibson at 218-2131 or email [email protected].
