Tax levy up 1.56% in current draft of budget

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. >> The current draft of the school district’s 2017-18 budget totals $61.8 million and would increase the property tax levy by 1.56 percent.

Total spending in the budget would be 2.2 percent higher than in 2016-17.

The proposed tax levy totals $37.77 million, the maximum allowed by New York state. Because the levy does not exceed the state limit, the budget needs only a simple majority of “yes” votes from the public to be approved. (Budgets with tax levies that exceed the state cap need 60 percent support to be enacted.)

The cost of employee health insurance is one of the factors driving up expenses. The expected $10.5 million total for 2017-18 is almost 16 percent higher than this year’s amount.

District Business Administrator Lissa Jilek said insurance cost are rising because the school district is part of the Dutchess Educational Health Insurance Consortium, which has Empire BlueCross/BlueShield as its insurance carrier, and “we, as a consortium, are spending more money than what we are actually taking in from the districts.”

Also, Jilek said, “claims within the consortium have skyrocketed” during the past year, in part because of the absence of a new contract between Empire and the two hospitals in Kingston run by HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley.

“Folks who are use to going to Kingston ...for surgery, procedures, whatever, found out that Kingston would no longer accept [the] health insurance,” she said. “A lot of folks started going over to Northern Dutchess [Hospital, in Rhinebeck] and Vassar [Brothers Medical Center, in Poughkeepsie], and, apparently, they really liked the quality of service they received across the river.”

Other elements of the 2017-18 school district budget include:

• $17.3 million in regular-school teaching costs, up 1 percent from 2016-17.

• $17 million for employee benefits, up 5.6 percent.

• $9.4 million for programs for students with disabilities, up 0.3 percent.

• $3.8 million for transportation, up 4.6 percent.

• $2.5 million in debt payments, up 0.1 percent.

District residents will vote on the budget on May 16.