Anne Marie Thayer has gone to work and helped the children of Newfield Central School District make music for 22 years.
Thayer teaches band for fourth through 12th graders in the district. She said Newfield prides itself on its arts programs.
“Music is something that students can interact with their entire life.”.
However, Thayer’s class is not state mandated.
“When a budget is possibly not going to pass, or when we are in distress, it's always kind of nerve wracking, because that is one area that most schools will look to cut,” Thayer said.
What goes into a school district budget
In New York, registered voters have final say over most school district budgets. Every May, school districts bring a budget to voters, who either accept or reject the district’s spending for the year. This Tuesday, voters cast their ballots deciding school budgets and boards, with a 96 percent passage rate across the state.
That one election has a big impact on schools, deciding what financial resources schools have access to. Since the budget needs direct approval from the people, school districts have to balance their needs against what they can reasonably expect to have approved by the public.
Ahead of the vote, districts are legally required to share certain information with residents in a pamphlet.
It compares spending in this year's plan to the proposed budget for next year.
It includes the tax levy, the total amount of property taxes the district would collect to balance the budget. The pamphlet is also supposed to compare the proposed budget with something called the contingency budget.
“A contingency budget means that they don't levy any additional taxes over the previous year, so they can't increase the tax levy,” David Albert, chief communications officer for the New York State School Boards Association, explained.
Albert’s organization provides school board members with training on fiscal stewardship. He said that school budgets have a pretty high success rate.
“I would say on average, you're probably looking at about a 98% passage rate throughout the state,” Albert said.
However, there’s one factor that can bring down that A-plus average. It’s called the tax cap.
The state sets the tax cap. It’s basically the percent increase in the total amount of taxes a district can levy without having to jump through additional hoops. To pass a budget that exceeds the tax cap, a supermajority of voters need to approve the plan.
This year, around 34 percent of budgets that exceeded the tax cap were rejected by voters. However, initial rejection doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the budget season.
“If the budget is not approved by the voters, then the board has two options,” Albert said.
Districts can stop there, and adopt that extra-lean contingency budget.
However, that often means significant cuts since the budget limits spending deemed nonessential. Another option is to go back for a revote.
“That happens in June,” Albert said. “They can go back, they can change the budget, or if they want, they can present the same budget.”
If that second attempt fails, it’s back to the contingency budget.
‘Educational priorities’
There are lots of reasons why budgets fail.
A community might feel they just can’t afford the extra taxes, or voters could be worried about district spending. Those concerns have come up in recent contentious school budget elections, particularly when districts have tried to exceed the tax cap.
Sometimes school districts need that extra funding so much that they put forward a budget that’s harder to pass.
Once upon a time, that was what was happening in Newfield. In 2022, the district was designated as being in significant fiscal stress. Like many New York school districts, Newfield has shrunk considerably over the past decade. That meant less funding from the state.
The district needed more money. So it asked for a 14 percent increase in the tax levy.
Perry Gorgen is the business administrator at Newfield Central School District. He started in 2023, after financial problems began. He said asking for more money from taxpayers is painful for districts too.
“These are our neighbors,” Gorgen said. “To ask for more money, nobody is in a position where that's an easy thing to do.”
When asked to approve a 14 percent increase in 2022, the neighbors said no. However, a later proposal did pass, with an eight and a half percent increase instead.
Now, a few years later, Newfield is no longer considered fiscally stressed.
“Through a combination of federal grant funds and increases in state aid and the community coming together to vote for stronger tax levies, we were able to put ourselves back on a strong footing,” Gorgen said.
That’s not to say there were no cuts. The district had to initiate early retirements, ultimately leading to fewer teachers in the district.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing since then either. The district’s 2024 budget failed and had to go to a revote.
Despite the challenges, Gorgen said the district has worked hard to make sure Newfield stays Newfield.
“Ultimately, a school budget is an expression of your educational priorities.”
One of those priorities is making sure Anne Marie Thayer’s band class can make music for years to come.