By David Tyler

With a lot of doubt swirling around the amount of state aid available for schools this year, the Fayetteville-Manlius school board adopted a budget for the 2020-21 school year that will increase the tax rate about half a percent.
The budget calls for slightly more than a 2.8% percent increase in overall spending. That increase is largely based on contractual salary increases. Increases in assessed value in the town will help keep the tax rate increase below 1%.
The budget as it currently stands “maintains or enhances the program for students,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business Services William Furlong.
The big question facing the board is how much of the aid New York State budgeted for F-M will actually come through. The pandemic is creating massive shortfalls in state revenues and the governor has been granted the authority to make reductions in aid at a later date if he believes it is required.
To hedge against these reductions, the district cut about $500,000 out of its original budget, to include reductions in field trips, supplies and equipment, bus aides, and about 1.4 full-time equivalent teaching positions that would be eliminated through attrition. In addition, the district is highlighting items totaling $1.1 million that are included in the budget but will not initially be funded as the district waits to see how much aid the state will provide. Those items include two FTE teaching positions and two FTE non-instructional positions that are available because of retirements.
With students staying home, the district is seeing some operational savings in the current school year for items like substitute teachers, coaches, diesel fuel, utilities and field trips. F-M will be able to use some of that savings in the next school year to offset some of the budgeted decreases.
Having passed the board of education, the $88 million budget will go before the public at the district’s annual budget vote. School budget votes typically take place in mid-May, but this year the vote has been postponed until sometime after June 1 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.