District Kicks Off 2012 Budget Process

Administrators in the Three Village Central School District have already begun to prepare for the 2012 budget process and will soon make those preparations public, interim superintendent Neil Lederer said Wednesday.

"We’ll start kicking it into gear publicly in December," Lederer said. "...I’ve been focusing on it with my cabinet for quite a while."

He said he expects to present preliminary budget numbers to the Board of Education at its Dec. 13 meeting. The early preparations are necessary to meet what the district has interpreted as a possible state deadline of March 1, 2012 to present a draft budget to the state Department of Education – though the state's requirement are still unclear, Lederer said. The March 1 date was included as part of the state's passage of tax cap legislation earlier this year, which Lederer

"The state hasn't given a clear indication of what that March 1 date really represents," he said. "We’re still feeling this thing out and trying to understand it."

State education officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Lederer said the district will target possible budget cuts in January, and that he'll meet with PTA representatives to prep them "so they're not blindsided by this."

Each school's administration has also been asked for building budget requests – for things like textbooks and other materials – but Lederer said those exclude salaries and benefits and only amount to a small part of the school budget.

The district will still formally adopt a budget in April, he said.

In May, the community passed a $174.6 million 2011-2012 budget with.