PLATTSBURGH — The Plattsburgh City School District’s second 2012-13 budget proposal goes before voters today.
The board-approved $37,812,744 plan, which is down 1.53 percent from the current year’s spending allotment, carries a tax-levy increase of 2.84 percent and includes more than $1.5 million in reductions.
Eliminated by the proposed budget are the equivalents of 15 full-time instructional and six support-staff positions, field trips, the Odyssey and High School after-school programs, supplemental transportation and food services at Momot Elementary’s pre-K program and some interscholastic-athletic teams.
The district’s initial budget proposal, which was defeated last month in a vote of 1,365 to 729, had called for $38,388,474 in expenditures next school year and surpassed the district’s 3.01 percent tax-levy limit by more than 2.5 percent.
The budget up for vote today needs a simple majority to pass — not a “super majority,” as did the first budget — due to the reduction in tax levy for this version.
If the school’s revised spending plan is not approved in today’s public vote, the district will, by law, be forced to adopt a contingency budget for next school year. That would not allow any increase in the tax levy.
A contingency budget would mandate an additional $600,000 in cuts, putting the school’s music, foreign-language, child-advocate, pre-K and full-day kindergarten programs at risk of reduction or elimination, according to school officials.
The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. today at Bailey Avenue and Momot elementary schools and the Duken Administration Building, located at 49 Broad St.
Email Ashleigh Livingston: alivingston@pressrepublican.com
