Schoharie Budget Vote Tuesday, Noon to 8pm - Six Positions Eliminated in $28.3M Budget; Tax Levy Up 2.95%

By David Avitabile

SCHOHARIE - Schoharie school district residents will be voting on a $28.27 million budget for 2025-26 on Tuesday, The vote will be from noon to 8pm in the high school gym.

The proposed budget has a tax levy hike of 2.95 percent and the reduction of six positions.

Expenditures are up by $649,738 or 2.35 percent, mostly due to three areas: debt services costs for capital improvement projects, health insurance, and tuition costs for students with special needs who have to go to schools outside the district.

In order to cut spending, reductions in the 2025-26 budget included:

* Reduction of three full-time equivalent positions at the Elementary School.

* Reduction of one FTE administrator.

* Reduction of one FTE position, business teacher in the high school.

* Reduction of one FTE position, Special Education teacher in the elementary school.

SCS officials said the reductions were due to declining enrollment.

The reduction of an administrative position will result in the district having to reorganize its administration team.

There were hopes that increased state aid would be coming to Schoharie once the state budget was adopted, but that was not the case.

"We will be receiving less aid than what was proposed by the Governor," Superintendent David Blanchard said last week. "Our state aid increase is 2.21%. In the Governor’s proposed budget, the aid increase was set at 2.66%. This equates to a reduction of $38,000 from where we thought we would be. It doesn’t necessitate further cuts. We will look at making up this difference through our reserve accounts."

The increased spending costs is concentrated in three areas:

* Employee Benefits, an increase of approximately $441,000.

* Debt Service payments, a hike of approximately $204,000.

* Continuation of increased tuition cost of about $400,000 over the last two years.

Officials said that over the last two school years, the district as seen a 50 percent increase of students who have moved into the district in need of outplaced special education services.

The budget includes a tax levy of $8.95 million, up $256,675 or 2.95 percent. The tax levy increase is similar to the 2.95 percent inflation rate per the State Education Department, SCS officials said. The tax levy and rate change is within the NYS Tax Cap requirement.

In March, the district was looking at a preliminary budget of $28,752,414, an increase of 4.09 percent or $1,128,493 over the current spending plan.