Falls school officials air concerns over 2012-13 budget

Local News

February 17, 2012

By Timothy Chipp Niagara Gazette The Niagara Gazette Fri Feb 17, 2012, 03:12 AM EST

NIAGARA FALLS — The Niagara Falls City School District is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best concerning the development of its 2012-13 spending plan.

The district is working under the assumption about $250 million of state funding originally promised to school districts will in fact be held back, in favor of offering grants to districts to take advantage of. Originally part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget presentation, these grants have left district financial planners like Tim Hyland and Rebecca Holody wondering what to do next.

“Our potential revenues are probably the biggest surprise,” Hyland said following the district school board’s meeting Thursday. “Nobody expected that $250 million to be set aside for grants. For us, that’s a loss of about $1.6 million.”

Hyland said the biggest concern the district has about the $250 million is nothing about the grants has been finalized yet. He said if more information was made available to districts about how to get it and when it would arrive, the concerns wouldn’t be as urgent.

The $1.6 million would go a long way to helping the district bridge an estimated $3.1 million gap between revenues and expenses projected for 2012-13, Hyland said. It would save a lot of cuts the district is set to present to board members in March based on the governor’s original proposal.

Another option the board could explore would be to increase its tax levy the maximum allowed under the state’s new 2 percent tax cap. But the district hasn’t increased its tax levy, or the total amount of money it would collect in property tax, in the last 18 years and Hyland said administration isn’t proposing such a move. If the district were to increase the levy, however, a 2 percent increase would result in an extra $1.74 per month charge for an average city house valued at $50,000.

The $3.1 million difference is affected greatly by both an increase in salaries and retirement fund contributions. Administrators are projecting an increase of $1.6 million in salaries and an estimated $740,000 jump in retirement contributions from current year levels.

“Pension costs are going up, which is completely out of our control,” Hyland said. “The New York state pension systems will cost this district $6 million next year. Ten years ago, it was $600,000. That’s $5 million that could be going elsewhere in the budget.”

“We’ve done a good job of controlling the parts of our budget that are in our control,” Superintendent Cynthia Bianco added. “It’s the parts that we have no control over that are hurting us.”

Budget discussions will continue at the district’s next board meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in the auditorium at the former 66th Street School, 630-66th St.

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