School Board Accepts $103.1 Million Budget With 3.28% Tax Increase

The will send a $103.1 million spending plan to local voters next month, asking them to accept an approximately 3.28 percent tax rate increase for the 2011 - 12 school year.

The budget was accepted Wednesday evening and increases spending by 1.62 percent from the 2010 - 11 school year. The tax levy, which is the portion of the budget paid by taxpayers, totals $91.3 million. 

Cost drivers including the New York State Retirement System and contractual salary increases bumped up costs by nearly $4 million. The hit on the tax rate was once again exacerbated by dropping property assessments, the board said, resulting in the tax rate increase of more than 3 percent.

Cuts for 2011 - 12 will include seven full-time teaching positions as well as 12 other non-teaching jobs within the district. It is not known how many employees will be laid off and how many positions vacated by retirement will remain unfilled. Harrison School Superintendent Louis Wool said meetings with teachers and other workers facing a possible layoff will take place this week.

"We don't have extra employees in our district, we don't have people hanging around just passing the day," said Wool. "When we make cuts these are good people losing their jobs that performed a valuable service, so we are always really sad to see that happen."

Staff reductions resulted in more than $1 million in savings for next year. Wool said 2011 - 12 will be the first time in recent memory the school district has not been able to avoid significant layoffs. The school will, however, keep class sizes at approximately the same level.

"There will be some cuts, but we think that we still maintained the academic programs and our mission as we are committed to it," said Board of Education Vice President Dennis DiLorenzo.

A total of 16 student clubs are expected to be cut between and  resulting in nearly $74,000 of savings. The board will leave it up to each school to choose which clubs will be eliminated, but said it is possible that if club seasons are shortened some of the 16 could remain active. Reducing modified sports programs was also considered, Wool said, but those programs will ultimately be kept intact.

"I'm not happy with tonight's budget," said Wool. "This was the best of what we could come up with in a less than wonderful circumstance."

Local non-salaried reductions added up to $1.86 million. The budget was also helped, the board said, by and a new agreement with school administrators announced Wednesday that will freeze their pay in 2011 - 12. 

School administrators will take a zero percent pay increase in 2011-12, followed by 1.75 percent increases in 2012 - 13 and 2013 - 14, as part of their renegotiated contract with the district.

Just more than $4 million was also removed from the tax levy through a one-time use of fund balances and reserves, using saved money from past years to reduce this year's tax burden. Without that the tax increase could have been closer to 8 percent, said Robert Salierno, assistant superintendent for business.

The budget was unanimously approved by the board and will be available for public view from April 27 until May 3. The board will present the proposed budget on May 4 and take public comments before it goes to a vote on May 17.

If the budget fails in May, the board will need to either propose another budget to voters or adopt a contingency budget. Last spring a similar 3.3 percent tax increase by 372 votes.