GILBERTSVILLE – The Gilbertsville-Mt. Upton Board of Education has proposed a 1.75 percent increase in the tax levy for the next school year. G-MU cut spending by 2.29 percent compared to last year and is looking at a $576,234 shortfall in aid.
The proposed $8,664,705 budget is $203,139 less than last year’s $8,867,844.
Voters will cast their ballots May 17 from noon to 8 p.m. in the central school’s main lobby.
Superintendent Glenn Hamilton said the district expected federal stimulus aid to “drop off the cliff” as the one-time funds ran out. The school also expected to see a year of reduced state education aid, but had to revise its three-year financial plan as Albany cut aid by 3.28 percent more than expected for the 2011-2012 school year.
Hamilton was critical of how lawmakers made the cuts, saying upstate schools, which tend to have lower property values and a much greater dependency on state aid, are asked to sacrifice the most. Last year about 70 percent of the school’s budget was comprised of aid and in the coming year, that figure will shrink to about 65 percent, according to Hamilton.
G-MU Business Manager Dorothy Iannello estimated the 1.75 percent increase in property taxes would raise $37,873 for the school’s coffers, only about 6 percent of the district’s $576,234 financial shortfall.
“There’s just no way for us to raise enough funds through taxes to account for the cuts in state aid, not only that but it would be an unjust burden on the local taxpayers. We feel this increase is a reasonable amount,” said Hamilton.
A letter signed by all the board members, who unanimously passed the proposed budget, read, “We feel that this budget maintains a balance between maintaining student programming, the use of reserves, and a property tax levy that our community can accept, even in these tough economic times.”
Hamilton said the school would bridge the remaining shortfall by eliminating nine positions, including four and a half instruction positions and four and a half support staff. Hamilton said two of the positions were currently on extended leaves of absence and at least two others would be eliminated by attrition. The rest of the employees will be laid off at the end of the current year.
“Over $550,000 was trimmed from the budget, reducing staff by attrition and staffing cuts and other fiscal belt-tightening in these tough economic times,” stated the board’s public letter.
For a second year in a row, the district will tap into its reserve funds to help supplement the loss of aid. Last year the school used $275,000 from the reserve and has proposed spending another $395,000, leaving just over $2.7 million remaining in the accounts.
Hamilton said the school had budgeted to preserve extracurricular activities, explaining all programs available last year would again be offered.
“This a practice you dare not make habit of. We’re hoping aid will start to come back in the coming year. We already have a bare bones budget,” said Hamilton, who compared the financial situation facing many school districts as “living paycheck to paycheck.”
“From one point of view aid has to be restored. Schools can only go on with these kinds of reductions for so long and in the next year or two you’ll see schools reaching a breaking point,” said Hamilton.