The Fredonia Central School District’s Board of Education met via Zoom Tuesday to discuss the tentative 2020-2021 school year budget.

Fredonia Central School’s Board of Education met Tuesday to discuss the tentative budget for the upcoming 2020-21 school year.

As a whole, the budget is not going to differ much from the previous year going up roughly $359,789 for the upcoming year.

Incremental changes include a $62,171 increase in salary and benefits with an overall change of $241,298, a $201,420 increase in BOCES expenses and interest on debt is up 30.25% or $258,850 which includes the $8.5 million project.

A huge savings is coming from the New York State Teacher’s Retirement System which will be down 13.9% or $179,127 as well as smaller savings in the areas of equipment which is down 52.33% or $93,015 and contractual expenses at $84,285.

In the state budget Foundation Aid has been frozen for the current school year due to the pandemic which becomes a reduction of $210, 016 from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposal in January. This amount has been subtracted from the state revenue projections. There is also a Pandemic Adjustment deduction of $315,723. There is language in the budget allowing the state to reduce a school district’s aid by an amount up to the Pandemic Adjustment mid-year.

The local share is thus looking to be up $8,000 or 1.35%, state will be up $54,639 or 0.43% and applied fund balance is up $136,555 or 13.08%. The total tentative budget for the school year is set at $30,666,526 with the tax levy at 1%.