Cohoes school board eyes proposed budget
Proposal would increase tax levy
COHOES, N.Y. » Cohoes City School District officials are hopeful that the Board of Education will approve the district’s 2018-19 proposed school budget at its meeting next month.
On Wednesday night, district officials discussed the $42.92 million proposed budget during the school board’s regular meeting in the Cohoes Middle School library.
The amount of the proposed budget is a 2.6 percent increase from the current school budget, that was approved last year.
District officials said some highlights of the budget include adding a new special education teacher’s aide along with $30,000 allocated for security upgrades within the schools. Some other budget highlights include adding an academic intervention services teacher for $50,000 along with partnering with AmeriCorps for a $9,000 Restorative Justice Program.
During her brief presentation, Stacy Mackey, school business official, also mentioned network upgrades as one of the other recommended highlights of the proposed budget for $530,000, although the district would not need to cover much of that cost.
“The network upgrade that is a district wide upgrade and
that would be 80 percent aided through E-Rate, so it’s a $530,000 upgrade but again 80 percent would be refunded to us in the same funding year through ERate,” explained Mackey, who also said since the district is going through BOCES for the upgrades so the remaining expense would also be BOCES aide able.
As of Wednesday night’s meeting the district was projecting to receive $19,500,935 in State aid, which would be a 3.67 percent increase over the current budget and $604,000 in federal aid, which is a 235.56 percent increase over 2017-2018.
On Wednesday night, Mackey said the maxi- mum allowable tax levy with a 50 percent plus one vote would be $15,385,622, which would be a 2.92 percent increase over the current year school budget.
Mackey said the estimated tax rate for the 201819 proposed budget would be $35.39 per $1,000 of assessed property value.
In her presentation Mackey said that the proposed tax rate still would be around the same range as previous year’s rates. She said in 2015-2016 the tax rate was $36.24, in 20162017 it was set at $ 35.42 and the current tax rate is at 35.40
“So despite the 2.9 percent increase in the [tax] levy, we are looking at an overall tax rate decrease for the 18-19 budget, which is good news,” said Mackey.
On April 11, the Board of Education members will vote on the proposed budget and the property tax report card. If approved by the school board next month, taxpayers will then be able to attend a formal budget hearing at the middle school library at 6 p.m. on May 2 and taxpayers would then vote on the proposed budget on May 15.
Voters will also most likely see a separate proposition on the May 15 ballot with district officials seeking voter approval to establish a Capital Reserve Fund, so that the district can put any surplus monies aside in a special, voter- controlled fund that could be used to address future renovations and repairs within the school district. District officials also noted that voter approval would also be required at any time capital reserve funds would be spent.