Voters will have an opportunity to hear and comment on Haldane's Budget (or Spending Plan) on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 7:00pm in the Board Meeting Room. A recently-revised draft version of the budget is available on the Haldane School website. Public input is sought now, and especially in Tuesday's public meeting, before this budget is adopted by the Board and presented for voter approval.
Changes and challenges to the budget process this year:
Superintendent Mark Villanti has illustrated the mounting pressures to school funding, including the Tax Cap and state aid reductions through the Gap Elimination Adjustment. For Haldane, this adjustment accounts for a $500K cut in state aid each year over the past few years. Thus far, Haldane has been able to weather these cuts because of Federal ARRA money and by using savings from its own reserve funds. However, the ARRA money has run out, and district savings will as well.
Dr. Villanti has suggested that the public may consider writing to New York State representatives in Albany to request reform to the Gap Elimination. Without some reform in Albany, school budgets face pressures which will continue to seriously undermine public school funding next year and for the foreseeable future, and risk decimating New York State public education.
Some definitions:
Annual Budget (or, more accurately, the Annual Spending Plan): the total amount of revenue the School Board determines will be needed to pay all of the district's bills for the entire year. The Spending Plan is what voters decide to approve on Budget/Trustee Vote Day, May 15. The Board of Education must try to craft a budget so that there are adequate funds to see the district through the entire school year. If a district overspends its budget, and if the money runs out before the end of the school year then bills will go unpaid (unless the district borrows additional money to pay for them). At the same time, a district is not allowed to hold more than 4% of the budget in its fund balance left over from the prior school year. The difficulty in budgeting is to balance having enough money—but not too much—in the district checking account, simultaneously bearing in mind the financial burden on taxpayers.
Revenue: income from property taxes, government aid, tuitions, and grants.
Tax Levy: the number of dollars collected through taxation. In the case of a school district's Tax Levy, this includes the portion of the dollars collected from property tax which are specifically allocated for the school district. In Philipstown the school tax bill is separate from the Town tax bill. A property owner's total property tax bill will include both municipal (i.e., town, village, fire department, etc) and school taxes. Haldane's Tax Levy for the 2011–12 fiscal year was $16,996,875.
Tax Cap: a calculation defined by New York State which limits the Tax Levy Revenue to a maximum dollar amount. Budgets (or Spending Plans) whose Tax Levy Revenue falls under this Cap would need only simple majority approval by voters. A School Board may present a budget which is over the Cap, but a super majority of voters (60%) would be needed to pass an over-Cap budget. This year for Haldane, the Tax Cap is calculated at $17,586,003. It should be noted that this is not a "2% Cap," which is a misnomer. This Tax Cap for Haldane as calculated following New York State rules is actually 3.16% over the 2011-12 levy. However, the Haldane Board of Education is seeking to whittle the spending further to a levy of $17,462,504, which is below the Tax Cap.
Tax Rate: a calculation defined by assessments and equalization rates which are set by the county New York State Office of Real Property Services. Voters often ask, 'How much are my taxes going to increase with this budget?' This is a difficult question to answer with precision. The tax rate is defined in August, after the budget (or spending plan) vote and therefore cannot be determined—only estimated—during budget season. With the anticipated cuts requested by the Board, the projected tax rate for the 2012–13 budget year will be approximately 1.95%. Haldane makes every attempt to make a conservative estimate, and last year's tax rate was actually lower than what was estimated at budget time.
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