Revised Budget Information

Additional Question & Answer sessions, both virtual and in person, will be offered on Thursday June 12th:
12:00PM, Zoom

https://gananda-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_QSESmoNQSjq_E3a092wOsQ

7:00PM, Zoom and In Person (RMES Room 918)

https://gananda-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_91GsCbKbQJ253T69zPcL2

Attached Files

2025-2026 Revised Budget Presentation

Show Transcript

hello my name is Sean vanscoy superintendent of the get on the school district want to thank you for taking a few moments to review our budget presentation we are having a budget revoked on June 17th from noon to 9:00 at the Richard Mann Elementary school gymnasium this is a vote on a proposed budget for the 2526 school year this is revote because our first budget presented in May was defeated by the voters if you want to see this presentation or watch it live as we do it on Zoom there will be a zoom presentation on June 12th at 7:30 a.m. you can join via Zoom listen in watch ask questions listen to questions from other people or repeat that again at no on the 12th and then at 7:00 p.m. we will do a live and in person at Richard Mann Elementary School in room 918 this will be in person you can join us in person or or it will also be streamed via zoom and you can watch via Zoom ask questions hear questions from other people key points from this budget this budget for the 2526 school year is proposed to be 27,849,000 this is an increase of 1.79% from 2425 our current school year there are several types of Aid we received from New York State there's Transportation a high cost a um there's um building Aid Foundation Aid is a generated receive for instructional programs um that Foundation Aid increases 2% New York State imple implemented in 2012 a tax levy limit for all school districts and municipalities um in order to exceed the tax levy limit a calculation that's done through a formative from the state the district would need to receive a 60% positive vote to exceed the tax levy limit this budget stays within the property tax limit so we are proposing a levy increase that is 2.6% within the levy limit so we will only need a 50% simple majority to pass the budget on June 17th this is the proposed budget with General expenditures by grouping like similar grouping you can see that our total certified staff salary that's teachers administrators counselors teacher assistants you'll see that that line is going down by 2.6% you'll see that our total non-certified salaries is going up by 0.4% that is our teacher aides our clerical staff our cleaners our bus drivers our um mechanics or maintenance mechanics or grounds workers that cost for those salaries is going up in total by 0.4% you'll see that our New York State TRS contributions that's teacher retirement system contributions that amount that we're contributing to that is going down by 11% over the current year they just their rates that we have to pay into the system year to year that number can go up or down um it's charged based on the number the amount of the salaries we spend they give us a rate um that rate is going down for us you can see that our ERS contributions are going up by 14% And it is due to rate changes from New York State again that's imposed to us is that something we do a voluntarily or choose to do voluntarily health care expenses you'll see that we our Healthcare expenses are going up by 8.3% we participate in a Consortium of 47 District to achieve the best rates we can um better than um the Open Marketplace so our rates are going up 8.3% other benefits are down 2.3% our equipment purchases are up 7 5% they'll see that utilities tuition and contracted Services is up 3.9% the other big change the big change and the expenditure side is really taking a look at the death service line the death service line is going up by 324,000 that's a 12.6% increase um and that represents um the US beginning to pay for the bus so the bus garage was approved by the voters previously it's gone through State Ed received um State adds approval we've sent that out to bid it's been bid on and that project will begin in the fall um and there is a initial payments due on that project next school year um which leads to the increased expenditure line for Debt Service on the total budget projected budget um goes up 480,000 or 1.79% rounded up to 1.8 proposed changes to the budget from year to year that are that are um need to be noted there are some reductions in this budget to maintain the 2.7% 6% Levy increase um reducing um 1.4 of an Ela teacher so reducing someone's instructional load we are reducing 2 Elementary School teachers while maintaining Elementary class sizes reducing instructional coaches by 1.5 we're eliminating 1 School of work coordinator position and we are we're changing the title of the chief academic officer to the position of coordinator of curriculum instruction we have several administrator retirements that are occurring this spring um we are changing the title to receive savings from the chief academic position um similarly we are hiring um interns for the assistant principal at the elementary school and the athletic director all 3 of those because we are um um choosing to staff them differently will see savings from the administrative portion of the budget increases you'll see that we are increasing a 0.5 upk teacher that position is funded by New York State you'll see that is an increase of a community schools coordinator that is funded by a grant and you'll see that there is summer school programming additional summer school programming provided by a grant from United way that additional Grant is 58,000 for additional programs in gananda that we would not have been able to provide highlights of this budget Elementary class sizes remain at 17 this year to next year secondary class sizes will be on average from 6 to 12 15 obviously there are classes that run with smaller than that and there are classes that run larger that the secondary um but on average there are 15 per class this maintains our high school electives and teens all of our athletic programs um and 24 college level courses many changes to our athletic programs will be based on rostering of students whether or not they choose to ate those Sports this budget maintains our bus replacement schedule we have 28 buses we placed 3 on average a year so we're on a 7-year replacement schedule this year we are scheduled to buy 2 large diesel and 1 small gasoline powered bus this includes a replacement of an electric panel the Middle School the middle school has an electric panel that is an original 1973 electric panel um we've had issues with it during the last year it needs to be replaced we are planning to replace that electric panel out of this budget if we do so if this budget is approved we spend dollars to replace that electric panel it is a considered a capital Improvement and we can receive 90,000 in aid for that replacement of that panel so it would cost local taxpayers this budget also reserves funding for a school resource officer uh we currently use officer rip from Mass and PD we have requested a sheriff's um Deputy to be an official full-time school resource officer we um they are unable to fill that position due to Staffing concerns that they have as many of us um are experiencing um they cannot provide that position at this time which is why we continue enjoy working with Officer Rick but we do need to make sure we have funding available if they find um staff to fill the SRO from the sheriff department we need to reserve funding so we can afford that if that comes to fruition this as I've mentioned continue sharing athletic programs um maintains our athletic programs and it includes sharing programs with Marion East roster and Wayne so we will continue those shares seek ways to be more cost-effective and offer kids opportunities this continues to share instructional programs with back in boses so our students will still be able to go to Wayne Tech um through boses for um technical skills whether that is um construction whether it's electrical electrical trades or Plumbing or heavy equipment whether it's going to New Visions of Bose's for medical programs or nursing or it's going to palac for palax engineering program or maintaining um access to those services and programs for our students um and taking advantages of efficiencies of scale by working with other districts um to receive some cost savings this continues to share special education programs of all 10 districts in Wayne County Wayne County has a agreement between the school districts that does not exist in all counties in New York state we have an agreement that allows districts to enroll students in other districts programs based on vacancies so for example if gananda has a 12 to 1 to 1 class which would be 12 students 1 teacher 1 Aid um we only have say 3 students set up to be in our class there are 9 available slots we would allow other districts to place their students in our program that agreement allows us to charge that district for that seat um as a proration part of the costs of that program um that is something that other counties do not do it's something we do to take advantage of the efficiencies of scale um we will do the same if we find out that Wayne pal Marion Williamson have a program that we need to put 1 of our students in and they've got space we would be able to place a student there at a fraction of the cost of hiring a brand new teacher for that program locally proposed Revenue budget you'll see in the proposed Revenue budget um building Aid is only going up 6% um that's because the costs associated with the first year cost of the bus garage are down below in interfund transfers you'll see that um our non-property tax revenues are going up 7.5% that is sales tax um from County and that is also um income we received from Investments we'll see no change in our assigned fund balance they'll see that our property tax levy goes up 2.6 points 2.67% or rounded to 2.7% you'll see that we're using reserves to pay for our buses our 3 buses and transfer inner fund transfers to pay for our Capital project in the bus garage total expenditures up 1.79% rounded to 1.8 so that our budget is balanced what are the changes we keep hearing what changes what's different um from the 2425 budget you can see we our budget this year is 27,360,000 our May budget was 28 million to get ourselves back down to the 2.67 tax levy increase our June 17th budget is 27 849,000 that is a 216,000 reduction from May to achieve that tax levy increase it is still the 27,849,000 there's still a 1.79% year-over-year increase in the budget this slide is a required presentation from the state you can see that the state requires us to put all of our administrative costs whether it's salaries or liability insurance into 1 Place Capital costs those are related to facilities and um the costs of our bus garage other pieces are part of the capital costs and then programmatic costs are are our instructional programs and athletic programs and extracurricular programs so this is a presentation of that that's required by the state um usually does not give as much information as the line by line does but it's required component so the question we keep getting is what happens if this budget does not pass this budget does does not pass we will not put the budget out for a third vote so if this budget does not pass we are required to go to a contingent budget the Board of Education will adopt a budget and there will be a 0% tax levy increase so the district will impose a tax levy equal to the previous year will be a 0% increase there will still be a tax levy but there'll be no increase to it the district could no longer provide student supplies so for the past 5 to 6 years the district has purchased all student supplies provided them to all students on the first day of school we cannot do that it is written in the law that we are not allowed to do that if we go to contingent similarly if we go to contingent we must we are required to charge a fee for all public use of school buildings and grounds that means if um Boy Scouts Girl Scouts YMCA after school program um Walworth rack um G rats um gananda Youth Soccer Ganan youth across and under cheer any um gonna be Youth Theater any any Agency Group wants these are are um facilities we have to charge a fee that is required not essential maintenance may not be performed under contingent budget this means things like paying of walls um can't be done we can only do essential things um for example we can clean desks we can clean rooms we can clean lockers but we can't paint them um we can buy essential equipment like aeds um copiers what we couldn't do um non-essential things like um laminating machines so it's very tricky of which things we kind of can't do but there are limitations of what we can buy and do similarly athletic equipment and uniforms are considered to be non-essential so there would be no new athletic equipment and no new uniforms for next year finally we would not be able to do bus purchases bus purchases would not be allowed um and we would not be able to do Capital Improvements only Capital repairs the last 1 no Capital Improvements I've mentioned previously that the middle school is intending intending to purchase a new um electric panel here that's a cost of hundred thousand dollars that has a multi-month lead time to order that's not something that can be purchased and repaired with off-the-shelf supplies particularly since our electrical panel was um installed in 1973 so there are no replacement parts for it we are concerned about maintaining this um this was on a schedule to replace this year um if we if the is approved will replace it at $100,000 and get 90,000 dollars in Aid back from the states if this budget is not approved we cannot replace that as a capital Improvement piece it has to be considered a capital repair which means as a repair we would get no aid from the state so we would still need to do this repair we still need that electrical panel we would just not get any age from the state disc contingent budget would require a budget reduction of about 310 about of 310,035 the majority of that reduction would be saved from the fact that we're not purchasing process and summary once again the vote is June 17th noon to 9 and Richard Mann Elementary School in the gymnasium now for the anticipated Q&A section what is the actual cost to me you have to revise budget proposal passes well it will always depend on your assessed value of your true assess true value of your home um based on what we have for calculations given to at this point we know that the assessment roles are not finalized um we have we've done the calculation that up that for 150,000 home your tax levy would go up 88 for a hundred thousand dollar home it would go up 176 dollars like I said this is an estimate we don't have final tax roles um to be able to make that assessment to figure out that number exactly and these are based on true value of your home sometimes the tax rules you get have your assessed value which is not your true value which is a whole another 20 minute presentation explain the difference why is the budget vote if the elementary school simply put uh we have Regents on the 17th New York State sets the date the date is not a choice of the district we don't get to choose when to do the budget budget vote when the when the tax levy limit was imposed in 2012 this part of that um they set the vote date for June 17th June 17th is a Region's day at our high school we cannot do a vote in the gymnasium while the regions are going on that leaves us our best location is the elementary school gymnasium why are we doing it at noon at the elementary school that's because we have moving update Pre-K graduation at the elementary school on that morning um which means do not have access to that gymnasium until noon we will be running the budget vote from noon to 9 we are required by New York state to be open 6 hours and at least 2 of those hours have to be in the evening so we're meeting those requirements again we can only vote why are we doing this how many times will we vote on the the budget um we will only vote on the budget twice for a lot to do it 2 times if neither 1 passes we are required to go to a contingent budget which will be adopted by the board of Education what was removed from the previous what was removed from the previously proposed budget um 2 items from the May Bud budget vote 1 is a school to work counselor and the second is the family counseling of the fingerlakes both of those Services have been removed to me 1 position and 1 service had been removed from the May presented budget to get us down to tax will be the limit 1 of the questions is you know what have you done to reduce expenditures no costs keep going up yes costs keep going up salaries go up health insurance goes up insurance goes up we've had a huge increase in our insurance rates this year um um all districts have received insurance rate increases um due to projected concerns about um what's going to happen to costs so they're concerned that if we have to do repairs that are covered by Insurance the insurance needs to go up to cover those anticipated um Capital repair costs that we're hearing about what have we done come off the truck sorry about that so what have we done to reduce expenditures um we have to reduce expenditures been very focused for the last 7 years on becoming energy efficient so we have moved to LED lighting throughout the district we have moved to high efficiency boiler throughout the district we have spent a lot of money on cocking and sealing windows and crevices throughout the district um but probably the most notable noticeable things are that we have the solar Field behind the High School which has uh which generates um energy that exceeds the electrical usage of the Elementary and high school we also have what are called Co 10 units at the elementary middle school those are units that are gas powered units that generate heat and they also generate electricity um at a cheaper cost so you'll see here from this slide that since 2017 we received annually about 300,000 312,000 reduction in costs um due to our reduction in electricity utilization um we're always looking at Staffing and benefits optimization we're always looking at reducing staff that's current in this budget reducing 2 Elementary staff while still able to maintain class sizes because our enrollment is decreasing so as enrollment decreases were constantly looking at the services and how do we um make sure we are staffed appropriately and not overstaffing so to speak um cost-saving Partnerships uh we purchase um on cooperatives and to get discounts uh we share programs with other districts I've already talked about that and we have multiple staff that work between buildings um trying to find efficiencies um on art teacher will probably work in 2 buildings Elementary in the middle school or from high school we have PE teachers that work in multiple buildings so we we fully utilize all of our staff and the last thing is advocacy and funding efforts we continue to argue with New York State um argue with the legislative um realm that we are not being treated fairly in gananda for foundation Aid formula we've been doing that since 2015 the board um annually goes on at least twice a year with me to lobby for Aid we talked with our sin senators and assemblyman we talked to the state um so the finance group um we continue to argue for additional aid for gonna because we don't believe we're getting our fair share which leads us to the next slide so we continue to argue at the state level that gananda does not receive its fair share of foundation Aid this is the basic Aid that the state puts in a formula and they determine how much you should get you can see here that gananda gets 10 thou will get next year 10,000 dollars per student to fund our programs as you look at this you'll see there are 1 34567 districts in Wing County alone now looking at the rest of the state looking at um anything else to see that there are 7 districts that are getting 15,000 or more per student this is a form at the state runs they collect information this is not a this is not a calculation that we can directly impact here in gananda it's not something myself or my business office have any control over they look at your tax returns so every year when you do your tax returns you have to enter your district code that money that dollar amount feeds into their formula for what is the total amount of income from individ uals families um businesses in our community and also looks at property wealth so they collect the tax roles reported by the counties to figure out what our property values they use those to um data sets to figure out how wealthy Gand it is or is not So currently that formula weights more heavily the income portion of the formula so it sees that the formula believes or the state believes that we are um wealthier than those other stuff in District significantly um and that is why we do not receive the same level of Aid we continue to argue that while our incomes when I say we the Board of Education myself and Natalie Melnick continue to argue that while we may have income that is higher our taxes are based on property wealth and we have lower property wealth than most of those districts and of this New York State um we continue to argue that um the formula should returned to a state that allows for a greater waiting of our property value but you can see here um the district is the border case has been very committed to this if we could get thousand dollars more if we get that $15,000 mark That's 000 more per student um that would be about million dollars um that would have a significant impact on your taxes and a significant impact on the programs that we're able to offer here in the district thing we hear is our gananda taxes higher um I was going to be the other night someone made comments about how high they get on the taxes are we pulled some information about um the Ryan Homes that we have in Canada so if you look in 2008 and 2009 um Ryan Holmes was building a development here in gandha over on feasant run um peacock circle at the same time they were doing um a development on in Penfield on Naples Circle was the name of the street so we pulled um those exact same homes they're Ryan Homes same models different models um you know from locate from address to address but they are the same models of both place with the same costs um so we went back and we pulled some of the models you can see um these are the model these are models we were able to pull off online that had no improvements so with these know the these are original models from 2008 2009 so for the first 1 you can see that we had the same model home 2072 square feet you can see what the full market value of the assessments are of those homes and then with the school tax paid same thing for the second grouping you can see 2 homes on 1 enabled Circle 1 on peacock Circle Circle 2224 Square ft you can see the full market value of those homes and the school taxes finally you can see um 2 larger homes again the exact same model there are some you know the differences between each of the homes maybe the size of the driveway maybe smaller has a shed um but the same square feet of the home you can see the full market value of the homes are very comparable and you can see the tax rates so there are differences isn't that great tax rates um I think people will be surprised that that difference is not as large as often discussed or claimed they tax rates are relatively similar I believe so why does the district need to purchase new diesel or gas school buses we hear this question pretty regularly we currently have a fleet of about 28 buses um we rotate the buses on a 7-year program so we're buying about 3 buses per year um we do this um because we get 8 on our buses over 5 years so we get depending on the year and depending on the calculation anywhere from 65 to 70% 8 on our buses we know that um we are getting warranties that lasts us 5 years and that a 7-year Mark our cost for repairs um are exceeding the value of what we're getting on um the trade in so we've done a calculation we would love to be to 5 year rotation we're not there yet we're not at all or even close we have an attempted to make it to that we are on a 7 year rotation um if we do not buy buses we will be off our rotation um and we'll likely for more their costs probably not significantly for the 20 526 school year but could have a Cascade effect of having more repairs for 2627 particularly if you don't get back on rotation you can force us to have to buy more buses um in the 2627 school year um so this has an effect down the road to our costs we are on this rotation we did a study several years ago to get on this rotation make recommendations based on our Aid um and the trade-in value of our buses um and to be quite honest we're also trying to make sure we are having a current Fleet so that if we ever have to get to the point that we have to buy EV buses we can delay those purchases for a year or 2 um so we have been very thoughtful about this know that if we do not buy our buses next year it will have a financial impact on the district further down the road here's some additional information come from comments or questions we received um questions about how much our budget goes up year to year you can look at this and see that over the last 6 years 7 years our average increase has been 2.45% budget to budget increase on average 2.45% while inflation has gone up on average 3.7% 3.68 percent so you see that our budget to budget increase we're trying to be um stewards of our budget and trying to make adjustments every year to um stay within our means um and do better than the rate of inflation this is a reference Point um people always talk about their tax rate this is a tax rate on true it's a hard calculation to make because um it's based on the fact that um we look at all these assessments um the true value of the assessments um and you can see how that has um adjusted over time so the True Value year-to-year True Value tax rate would be potentially with this budget twenty dollars 79 cents for next year Which is less than it was in 1993 94 um talking about True Values it's hard because um it assumes 100% market value of homes but our towns do not assess it 100% market value um I believe last year Walters with it was at 82 or 84% and um massive was it 96 or 8% so those factors get into what the the tax rate you're seeing in your tax bill is that's not the that this is the true value of your tax rate if everybody was equalized at 100% you can see tax levy increase um how our tax levy has changed over time you can see that in 2010 and 105% 2011 what 3.8% then in 2012 when the tax levy limit was imposed we've been under 3% ever since some years it's below uh at 1.5% 1.57 percent someday years it's higher at 2.87% the tax levy is not 1 number there's a calculation of the state does on the converge from year to year it can vary from District to District um our tax levy for next year is 2.67% some of our neighboring districts are could it be at a 5% tax levy increase so once again there will be zooms on June 12th at 7:30 a.m. noon and 7 PM if you wish to join us would like to join us um if there's a question you'd to ask you can always email us or you can join um 1 of these sessions thank you for taking the time to listen