Under an executive order from Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued on March 30, annual school budget votes across the state have been postponed until at least June 1 and potentially longer. School budget votes were originally scheduled for May 19.

In normal school years, school boards develop budgets for the academic year in February and March. After that they find out their state aid numbers in early April, finalize budgets by mid-April and go out for voter approval in mid-May. The new budgets go into effect on July 1, which is the beginning of the new fiscal year. Newly-elected school board members are seated soon thereafter. At the moment, with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is unclear when this year’s school budget vote will take place.

The executive order also indefinitely postpones collection and filing of nominating petitions for school board elections, which are also delayed until at least June 1. This order has pushed back local school districts’ development of their budgets.

Back in March, before the COVID-19 outbreak, Superintendent of Schools for the Valley Central School District John Xanthis recommended a budget of approximately $108.9 million to the board. This was a two percent increase from the current fiscal year’s budget. Since then, the State Legislature passed their final budget and the district saw their state aid reduced significantly.

“We have had some discussions on what it would take to kind of close that gap,” said Interim Business Official Brad Conklin. “However we’re also afraid of what is still to come.”

The district will not present a recommended budget until at least May. This is because the state could potentially reduce aid to localities, including school districts if revenue comes in greater than one percent below the budget and expenses rise greater than one percent above the budget. There are three assessment periods: the first takes place April 1- 30, the second from May 1-June 30 and the third from July 1-Dec. 31.

“We’re all kind of holding our breath and seeing what May will bring up,” Conklin said.

During Thursday night’s Pine Bush Central School District Board of Education meeting, Superintendent of Schools Tim Mains expressed that the final state budget provided the district with some resources as well as some caveats.

“Although the year to year state expenditure on education does increase by $96 million, that increase is completely based on expense-based aid like BOCES aid, transportation aid…” Mains said. “That $96 million really represents one third of one percent increase in year to year spending on education by New York State.”

Mains added that the governor’s budget originally proposed close to a $900 million increase on state expenditure on education.

The New York State budget also included a pandemic adjustment, which reduced Pine Bush’s state aid by $656,836.

“In theory when you look at the budget, we get all of that back from CARES Restoration, which is projected money that’s going to be provided to the state and the state’s going to give to the school district...,” Mains said. “But it’s important to note that the total of that pandemic adjustment and CARES restoration is $1.1 billion. So that effectively means that even though it looks like year to year the state increased education funding by $96 million, in fact they decreased spending on schools by $1.1 billion...So that means next year when the state starts planning for education spending they’re already $1.1 billion behind where they were last year when they adopted the budget.”

The District’s final proposed 2020-2021 budget includes the addition of one social worker at the elementary level as well as two behavioral aides. Crispell Middle School will also see the creation of a new club. There will be additional technology costs to enhance Cybersecurity as well as initial funding for the District’s strategic plan.

The Wallkill Central School District hopes the Board of Education will approve its budget at tonight’s meeting. Their total working budget is $78,620,223, which is a 2.74 percent increase from the current school year.

The district plans to maintain all current programs and extracurricular activities in next year’s budget. They aim to maintain low class sizes for grades Kindergarten through 12 and plan to continue to have police officers in all five schools within the district.

Wallkill proposes to increase the number of sections in each of their summer learning academies and eliminate one full-time secondary social studies position.

Once the state establishes a budget vote date a new budget will be developed. The calendar will include budget presentation dates as well as other budget deadlines.

“We look forward to doing those presentations and hopefully maybe we’ll be able to join the PTOs when we do this and PTAs,” said Superintendent of Schools Kevin Castle. “But if not, we will still have an opportunity to do it virtually. We’ll have as much fun doing it virtually.”