At its meeting on February 14, the Roxbury Central School Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution calling upon Senator Peter Oberaker and Assemblyman Peter Tague to work to restore the funding cuts to education which are included in Governor Hochul's executive budget proposal. Prior to adopting the resolution, Roxbury Superintendent, Stacy Ward, gave a presentation to the board which detailed the effect that this reduction in state funding would have on the school.
Ms Ward explained that the Governor proposes major changes to the formula used to determine the funding received by school districts. This would result in Roxbury losing more than $800,000 in state funding. This represents 7.6% of our operating budget. She went on to explain that the district would have two options under such a scenario. One would be to increase property taxes to make up for the shortfall. This would require an increase in our tax levy of more than 13%. The other would be to make severe cuts to our educational program. Neither of these options is desirable.
In the upcoming weeks the two chambers of the state legislature will be releasing their own separate budget proposals. The Roxbury Central School Board of Education calls upon the legislature to restore the proposed cuts in education funding so that school districts across the state can continue to provide their students with the constitutionally mandated sound basic education.
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