Proposed Gilboa-Conesville Budget Has 1.84% Tax Increase

By Chris English

GILBOA-CONESVILLE _ A proposed 2025-26 Gilboa-Conesville Central School District budget has a 1.84 percent property tax increase, the cap set for the district by the state for next school year.

School district residents will say yes or no to the proposed spending plan at the annual budget vote on May 20.

During her budget presentation at the Wednesday, April 23 school board meeting, GC Superintendent Bonnie Johnson said the decision to ask voters to approve a budget with a tax increase at the cap does not come easily. However, she said she and other school district officials feel it is warranted for 2025-26 in the face of rising expenses in almost every area.

The board voted unanimously to approve the proposed $12.87 million budget and present it to voters later in the meeting.

"We will be asking the community to get us to the cap," Johnson said. "The Board of Education has been very supportive of the community here and over the years has passed budgets representing a lot of savings to the community. So, we hope they will support this going forward."

Johnson said the district splits the budget up into three parts: administrative, capital and program. Each is going up in 2025-26, in large part because of increased salary and benefit costs and also other factors. The superintendent said the administrative budget is going up $427,426; capital $395,000 and program $197,475. Employee health insurance costs are going up 10.5 percent and dental insurance up 3 percent, she added.

Included in the May 20 vote is a transportation proposition that will ask voters to approve the purchase of a full-size, 60-passenger school bus at a cost of $167,140 and two seven-passenger vans at a cost of $41,989 apiece.

The May 20 vote, which will also include the school board election, is noon to 8 p.m. at the school, 132 Wyckoff Road, Gilboa. At the April 23 meeting, the board approved incumbent Stephanie Bruck as the school board candidate for a five-year term.

The school board will hold a special meeting to lay out the proposed 2025-26 budget at 7 p.m. on May 6 at the school.

In other news from the April 23 meeting, the board heard a presentation from Social Studies teacher Michelle Fleischman and some students on their upcoming trip to the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) National Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida July 5-10.

Attending for GC will be Fleischman (adviser to the school's FCCLA chapter), Elementary Reading teacher Michelle Dumas (chaperone) and students Bray Shultes (8th grade), Abigail Woodcock (9th grade) and Ariana Yepez (9th grade).

Fleischman said 8,000 from across the country are expected to attend and among the many activities will be competitions in 32 different events. Students will be attending youth workshops, listening to National Officer Candidate speeches, attending general sessions and presenting projects they have been working long and hard on.

"We appreciate the support that the board and administration has given us over the years," Fleischman said at the April 23 meeting. "We're in the heat of fundraising (for the trip) right now."

In personnel action items near the end of the meeting, the board approved Jacqueline Lewis as a long-term substitute in Spanish retroactive to April 3 and accepted "with regrets" the retirement of long-time grades 7-12 English Language Arts teacher Andy Dumas effective June 28.