NEW BERLIN – Taxpayers in the Unadilla Valley Central School District will have the chance to vote on a revised school budget from noon to 8 p.m. tomorrow.
The proposal of $19,677,744 with an 2.4 percent increase on the tax levy was created by the board of education after the May vote did not pass with a super-majority.
The new budget is $440,608 less than the first budget, and the tax levy has been brought below the state tax cap, meaning it will only need a simple majority to pass.
Superintendent Robert Mackey said the board was able to save sports, clubs and kindergarten, but the decrease in spending still came at a cost.
“Our goal was to limit as much as possible the negative impacts on students and staff,” he said. “We’re also trying not to impede the ability of the district to grow and make achievements ... there’s a lot of progress in this area.”
The revised budget means cuts in the following areas:
• Eliminating a planned half-time BOCES itinerant physical education teaching position.
• Eliminating the summer swimming program.
• Eliminating participation in the Regional BOCES Summer School for students who fail courses during the regular school year.
• Eliminating the use of district funds to provide summer school programs, including all transportation. Grant funding may allow for the continuation of some summer programs, but participating students’ parents will have to provide transportation to and from school.
• Eliminating the use of district funds to provide afterschool programs, including all transportation. Grant funding and staff concessions (e.g., club advisors’ agreement to a 37.6 percent reduction in pay) will allow for the continuation of some programs, but participating students’ parents will have to provide transportation after school.
• Identifying savings from a retirement confirmed after the adoption of the original budget.
The revised budget represents a 1.33 percent increase from the current 2011-12 budget which Mackey attributed to a $2 million decrease in state aid and federal stimulus.
Mackey explained that despite the economic difficulties facing schools across the state, UV has performed exceptionally well the last two years.
The high school currently has a graduation rate of 86 percent and recently earned national recognition as a bronze-level school for exceptional levels of proficiency in English and math exams.
Voters will also decide tomorrow on the purchase of one 72-passenger school bus and one 48-passenger bus to “replace older, heavily used models.”
“The May vote told us we still had some work to do in order to meet our students’ educational goals while addressing our taxpayers’ concerns,” said Mackey in a press release last week. “The revised budget proposal means some significant cuts to programs and services, but they’ll allow us to stay with the tax levy limit. That seemed to be more important to many of our voters.”