No one came to voice their concerns during the public hearing on the proposed school budget; instead voters took to the polls Tuesday and voted down the 2010-2011 proposed budget for the Fredonia Central School District.
By way of 648 "no" votes to 554 "yes" votes, the $27.4 million budget was rejected. Under the proposed budget $13.9 million was to be raised by taxes, an increase of $1.2 million from 2009-2010.
"It's difficult because it was a very close vote. Obviously, when you're asking the community to support a close to a 10 percent increase on the tax levy, that is difficult for many people to do. They just simply can't afford it," Superintendent Paul DiFonzo said of the rejected vote.
School leaders will meet during their next regular board meeting on Tuesday, May 25 to review the options they have. Because the district was at a contingent budget - the administrative cap, which the district is $107,000 under; and the overall budget cap, which the district is $73,000 under, including equipment - the board has several options.
"In the case of the budget being defeated, as it was tonight, we have a couple of different options," business administrator John Forbes said. "The first, we have to meet both budget caps and in the case of Fredonia we were at those levels numerically. The second, if the board was to adopt a contingency budget straight without going to a re-vote and without any changes they automatically have to take out any equipment, which in this budget was a little over $35,000. Third, they can come back with the same budget again as a re-vote, they can come back with a revised budget as a re-vote, or they can simply remove that contingent amount and accept that as the budget."
Examples of items that may be cut if a contingent budget is passed include: new equipment unless deemed by the Board of Education to be a health and safety issue, non-essential maintenance items, and certain consultant services. Also, if a contingent budget is passed, public use of school buildings and grounds except when there is no cost to the district would be affected.
"I think the voters looked at what was offered and decided that the tax levy was a bit steep. There are alot of things going on in our district. We're moving our primary level students to the Main Street campus next year, we've reduced 18 staff members including two administrators; we're going through a very difficult time," DiFonzo said. "The difficult part about that is this is a community school and all of the outside groups and organizations that use our school district, civil service, Girl Scouts, before and after school programs, some groups that are not used to paying for use of the facilities are going to find out that is part of the state requirement with a contingency budget."
Also under a contingent budget, no capital expenditures can be made unless in an emergency situation.
Under the 2010-2011 proposed budget, taxpayers would have been expecting an increased tax rate of about 9 percent. The proposed tax rates per thousand dollars of assessed value for the 2010-2011 school year show Pomfret at $106.47 ($9.61 increase), Arkwright at $35.24 ($3.09 increase), Portland at $33.22 ($2.91 increase), Sheridan at $32.24 ($2.83 increase), and Dunkirk at $26.45 ($2.32 increase).
If the board choses to approve a contingent budget and an additional $35,879 under the equipment line is removed from the budget that would lower tax rates in Pomfret (per thousand) by 33 cents, in Arkwright by 9 cents, in Portland by 8 cents, in Sheridan by 8 cents, and in Dunkirk by 7 cents.
"You're looking at basically the same budget taking out $35,000 of equipment and you're looking at a 9.6 or so percent increase on the tax levy. We're in a difficult situation," DiFonzo said. "The board will have to look at the options and discuss to see if they want to change the budget at all and come back out with it, or if they want to go straight to contingency."
No firm answers were available as to why the budget was not approved, residents possibly may have voted down the budget in hopes that the state would pass a budget with an increased amount of state aid for school districts which could be applied against the levy. Either way the untimely state budget did not help, according to DiFonzo.
"We do have the legislators working, hopefully, on a final state budget. All indications are there hasn't been much progress," DiFonzo said. "Our district understands that our state aid has been reduced by $1.4 million, and we've talked about the possible budget changing when the senators and the assembly can get together and decide on a final state budget it would impact what we're doing, but unfortunately that didn't occur in time for it to affect this vote."
Going forward the board will be without current president Dan Ihasz who decided not to run against once his five-year term was up. As to why he did not re-run, Ihasz said he thought five years was a good length of time and everyone should have an opportunity to be involved not only as a community member but also as a board member. Reflecting back he noted how much he enjoyed working on the centralization project between Fredonia and Brocton.
"A real high point was spending two years in detail on the potential merger," Ihasz said before the budget vote was announced. "One low was having it not get passed through the straw vote. I was thrilled for our community because even though there was a lot of giving up for our community people were in support of it, unfortunately Brocton didn't see it the same way and that's unfortunate. I hope that dialogue will continue."
Replacing him on the board will be Karen Mosier, a former teacher at Forestville Central School, she received 822 votes as the only candidate, with one write-in candidate being Frank Pagano who received two votes.
"I'm looking forward to working in the best interest of the school board and the best interest of our residents and our students," she said. "I want to continue to look out for the best interest of our students and in doing so we need to keep an eye on the costs that continue to rise and see what we can do to help with that. I would like to see us centralized with either Brocton or another school district, we're open to ideas. We've been in favor of it all along."
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