Sharon Springs School Board Approves New PILOT Deal With Walmart

By Chris English

SHARON SPRINGS — A new Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement with Walmart will mean more than half a million dollars a year over the next 10 years for the Sharon Springs Central School District.

The school board at its Monday, May 12 meeting approved the new deal that will mean payments of $552,000 a year to the school district starting July 1 and running through June 30, 2035. The agreement is for the huge 217-acre, 1.42 million square-foot Walmart Distribution Center just off Route 20 in the school district that was finished in 1994. It replaces the previous 10-year PILOT approved in 2015.

Sharon Springs CSD Superintendent Thomas Yorke said after the meeting that the yearly payments under the new agreement are considerably more than under the current deal, though he did not have exact figures on hand. However, they still are considerably less than if Walmart were paying property taxes on the full assessed value of the distribution center, he added.

"It basically makes up for what is being lost in state aid," Yorke said of the new agreement. "Yes, I'm very happy with it. Every little bit helps."

During the meeting, school board President Helen Roberts remarked that "I wish we could go back and get what we lost over the last 10 years, but I'm thankful that they at least seem to have us in the right category now."

The new 10-year PILOT agreement, negotiated with Walmart by the Schoharie County Industrial Development Agency, is scheduled to mean a total of $1.15 million in annual payments split up between the school district, Schoharie County, the Town of Sharon and the Village of Sharon Springs. The school district will receive $552,000 a year, the county and town both $201,250 and the village $195,500. The new deal must be approved by each of the four entities.

In other actions from the May 12 meeting, there was a brief discussion of the proposed 2025-26 budget that will be voted on by district residents on May 20, from noon to 9 p.m. in the school's Auditorium Atrium. The $11.48 million spending plan proposes a 3 percent property tax hike, well below the actual state cap for the district of about 7 percent but more than the usual tax increase for Sharon Springs CSD.

"We've traditionally stayed far below 2 percent," Yorke said. "It's hard enough to ask our residents for 3 percent, but it seemed like the fiscally responsible thing to do at this time, especially given the uncertainty with state and federal financial support for public education."

Isabella Perrotti was introduced as the Class of 2025 Valedictorian and Seth Mahoney as the Salutatorian. They were praised by Yorke and school board members, presented with gift bags filled with various goodies by Roberts and enjoyed some refreshments during a brief break in the meeting.

Perrotti is Class President, President of the National Honor Society and has participated in many other activities during her time at Sharon Springs CSD. She will attend SUNY Cobleskill to major in Applied Psychology and pursue a four-year bachelor's degree in that field, and said she hopes someday to be a school psychologist.

Mahoney is Vice President of the Class, is a member of the National Honor Society and was captain of the varsity boys basketball team this past season, among many other activities during his time at the school. He will attend the University of Buffalo to major in Exercise Science and hopes someday to get a job in sports management _ possibly as an agent _ and would also like to coach. Both he and Perrotti went the full way in Sharon Springs, from Kindergarten through 12th Grade.

The school board and audience at the May 12 meeting heard a brief presentation from architect Daniel Fay of Teitsch-Kent-Fay Architects and Energy Account Executive Eugene Waidbauer of John W. Danforth Company on a proposed capital project and energy performance contract that will be on the May 20 ballot.

Waidbauer said JW Danforth is the biggest construction firm in the state and a leader in the area of energy performance contracts.

"We do more of it than anyone in the state," he said. "This would be a turnkey construction project, meaning our engineers would design it and our firm would handle construction. We would own it from beginning to end. There will be no change orders; the price we give you will be the price you get."

The EPC would be at a maximum cost of $1 million and would pay for itself in energy efficiency enhancements over the course of several years, Waidbauer added.

The capital project would be at a maximum cost of $2.73 million and would address "all kinds of things throughout the building," Fay said. Among them would be replacement of the boiler-heater in the bus garage, playground surface replacement, bleecher work in the new gymnasium, sidewalk and parking lots repaving and possible construction of a way to access the weight room during off hours.

"The size is balanced so there would be no increase in the local share (of the cost)," Fay noted.

"A lot of meat and potatoes," Yorke added.

Yorke and fellow school board members introduced Sofia Issa as a board seat candidate running for another term.

"We all appreciate Sofia's point of view she brings a very level approach," Yorke noted.

The board also approved a resolution that grants the ROC and its designated attorneys the authority to negotiate the terms and conditions of data privacy agreements regarding student personally identifiable information and certain teacher and principal data.

The ROC stands for Risk Operations Center and is an intermunicipal arrangement among four BOCES: Albany-Schoharie-Schenectady-Saratoga; Onondaga-Cortland-Madison; Madison-Oneida and Broome-Tioga. The ROC works toward the improvement of vendor management and data security and privacy practices for school districts and/or BOCES statewide.