The Corning-Painted Post Area School District (C-PP) school board approved the district’s proposed $150,709,245 million budget on April 15.
The budget is $6.4 million above the 2025-2026 and is a nearly 4.5 percent increase. This proposal is based on the state aid numbers from the January executive budget as school districts across New York await a final state budget to pass in Albany.
School Business Official Paul Webster told board members he does not expect the state aid to be less than what is stated in the proposal for $74 million combined.
School board members asked the district to put student programs first but also keep the budget within the tax cap.
The proposed 2026-2027 budget includes a 2.56 percent tax levy, which is within the tax cap. It requires a 50 percent plus one majority at the polls to pass.
In the previous two years, the C-PP budgets failed to pass on the first attempt when the district asked voters to accept tax levies over the tax cap. This meant the budgets needed a supermajority, or a 60 percent majority vote at the polls.
School Superintendent Michelle Caulfield said during a presentation to the school board on Wednesday that the district was able to absorb a $3,860,169 million budget gap included in the initial proposal in March, with no cuts to programming or services.
“Budgeting is supposed to be a statement of your values,“ said Caulfield. “What we are valuing this evening is the student experience.”
According to a presentation provided by district officials, they consolidated some departments merging administrative functions “to keep resources in the classroom,” managed staffing through retirements when possible and implemented a hiring freeze “evaluating every non-classroom and classroom vacancy before posting.”
The largest expenses to the district include salaries and benefits. Personnel is 70 to 80 percent of the school budget, according to Caulfield.
“We had an unusual amount of retirements this year,” said Caulfield.
The workforce was reduced by more than 44 positions that included both retirement and departmental consolidations across administration, classroom instruction and civil service. This resulted in nearly $1.5 million in adjustments in personnel.
Spending on debt services, or long-term debt repayment, increased by $1.4 million from last year
District officials also presented a nearly 20.7 percent increase in utility costs heading into the next fiscal year. According to the budget presentation slides, utilities make up approximately one percent of the overall expenditures.
Webster reminded the board there are impending unfunded federal and state requirements for instruction that will affect future budgets such as personal finance education, climate education, evidenced-based math instruction for grades one through five and full-time Pre-K seats by 2028 to children aged four years old.
A $1,000,000 grant from Corning Incorporated was secured this year to support the High School Learning Center, some classroom services and music programs.
“When [you’re] faced with a deficit of this size and you know that your community needs us to stay within the [tax cap], also knowing that personnel are 70 percent to 80 percent of your budget that we had to be really strategic this time around to not just eliminate whole programs,” said Caulfield.
The C-PP school district will hold its budget hearing on May 12. Voters go to the polls on May 19.
There are four school board seats up for election this year. The district deadline to file nominating petitions is April 29.