How are local school districts preparing their school budgets in lieu of the pandemic and social distancing. The State budget may decrease aid to schools and the County may not provide the sales tax revenues as in the past. Dealing with this diminishing aid, how will our districts proceed?
How will residents learn about the budget without face-to-face hearings? AND...
How will residents vote?
VOTING FOR BUDGETS AND CANDIDATES....
On June 9th, school district residents across the state will vote on school budgets for the 2020-21 year. As school districts contend with unprecedented economic challenges and now also with social distancing, voting is taking on a new look.
Voting will be done by mail...Absentee Ballots. Although it is an answer to the dilemma of maintaining resident safety, by not allowing in-person sign in and voting, it comes at a huge cost to the districts. It also comes with what some districts are calling confusion and non-specifics from the Governor’s orders. All Absentee Ballots require the districts to include pre-paid return postage.
Shawn VanScoy, Superintendent for Gananda Central Schools explains voting this way:
“Here is what I know. The budget vote is June 9 via absentee ballot. We need to mail a post card to all residents as soon as possible, those need to be written, sent to a printer and then mailed. So the cards will go out next week, hopefully. Anyone who wants to be on the ballot needs to nominate themselves, they no longer need to submit a petition with 25 signatures. Anyone can nominate themselves. All names on the Ballot will be listed alphabetically.”
He goes on: “The biggest challenge is that we need to send absentee ballots to all eligible voters. The problem is that we do not have a list of eligible voters -- we can get registered voters for Wayne County, and we can look at our voter lists from last year, but we know those are unlikely to completely match our actual eligible voter list. Hopefully, people will reach out to their school to verify they are on the list to receive on.”
BUDGETS
As far as anticipating revenues and expense for school budgets, with so many changes and unknowns, some school budget have been adopted and others are taking it to the last minute. All public hearings on the budgets re being held with telecommunicating and videos.
According to Bob Ike, Superintendent of School at Palmyra-Macedon, the Board of Education adopted a 2020-2021 budget proposal at its April 14th meeting.
“Pal-Mac’s proposed 2020-2021 budget is based on School Aid projections in the adopted New York State budget, which included a New York State “Pandemic Adjustment” aid cut of $341,000 for the district. However, the State’s Pandemic Adjustment aid cut is expected to be fully offset by Federal CARES Act restoration funds - including the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSERF) and the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER). The proposed budget does not require any cuts to existing programs and services for budgetary reasons, but also does not include any new programs or services. The proposed Pal-Mac budget is under New York State’s tax levy limit (tax cap) and would not require supermajority approval. The proposed budget includes use of approximately $200,000 from reserve funds as temporary revenue sources,” said Ike.
Ike noted that Pal-Mac’s proposed budget includes the flexibility to respond in the event of mid-year cuts to New York State School Aid.
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