It's that time of year again when community members head to the polls to vote on the school budget. While things are still up in the air, it's already looking good for one district.
Ravena Coeymans Selkirk School District Superintendent Vicki Wright said, "We received an additional $119,000 in state aid so we were very happy."
The budget at the Ravena Coeymans Selkirk School District would increase spending by 1.99 percent and the tax levy by 2.29 percent, which happen to be the lowest increases in the last five years.
Wright said, "We kept our budget projections at the same amount of money so that we would make a good budget proposal for our taxpayers, not hoping for the best but always prepared to be fiscally responsible."
It's that time of year again when community members head to the polls to vote on the school budget. While things are still up in the air, it's already looking good for one district.
An increase in state aid has helped the school district in many ways. They are able to reduce class sizes, purchase additional textbooks, and develop new programs. While this is all good, in today's economy, there's also a little give and take.
Wright said, "We were able to cut back on our fuel consumption of natural gas and electricity. Although we did have to increase because of the gas prices, we did have to increase our budget for diesel fuel and gasoline for transportation."
Like nearly all public schools in New York State, RCS receives more than 90 percent of its funding from two sources - state aid and district taxpayers. And with the proposed budget for this upcoming year totaling more than $41 million, school officials are hoping the government will continue to listen to the needs of the school and the community.
Wright said, "Because when we have to put requirements in place that we don't get funded for, that means the burden gets placed on the taxpayers and we try to do everything we can top make that burden lighter."
And time will tell. The budget vote for the RCS Central School District is May 20th at the high school.