By Melanie Lekocevic
Capital Region Independent Media
GREENVILLE — The board of education approved the proposed $35,986,371 budget for the 2024-25 school year. The spending plan will next go to a public hearing before voters head to the polls May 21 to have the final say.
District Superintendent Michael Bennett and Assistant Superintendent for Business Todd Hilgendorff presented the proposed budget to the board at its April 8 meeting. Following the presentation, the board unanimously approved the budget.
The proposed spending plan represents an increase of $1,758,600 over the 2023-24 school year, or a spending hike of 5.14%.
After some whittling, the district was able to meet the board of education’s directive to keep the tax increase to 2.5%.
The amount to be levied on taxpayers is $18,642,669, an increase of $454,699, or 2.5%, compared to the current school year.
State aid from New York has not yet been determined as lawmakers were still locked in budget negotiations at press time, but estimated state aid for the 2024-25 academic year is projected to increase by 7%, moving from $14,152,040 in the current year to $15,142,002 in the coming year. Those figures have yet to be finalized by the state.
The proposed tax increase is on a par with the previous couple of years in Greenville. In 2022-23, the tax levy jumped by 2.25% and in 2023-24, it increased by 2.47%.
Under the New York state tax cap, the district could have increased taxes by up to 3.17%, but board of education members said at several meetings that they did not want to go that high and asked district officials to bring the increase down to what they perceived as a more manageable 2.5% for local taxpayers.
By far, the largest bulk of the budget is for programs, which represent 74.85% of the total proposed budget. Programming includes expenses such as instruction, transportation and employee benefits. Next comes capital costs at 14.99% of the budget and administrative expenditures at 10.16%.
Salaries and benefits account for the largest expenditure for the coming school year and represent 73.12% of the total budget, at an increase of 3.01% over this year.
The district will hold the annual budget hearing May 7 at 6:30 p.m. in the Middle/High School auditorium on Route 81, where residents will have the chance to voice their opinion on the tentative budget. Then the budget vote will take place May 21 from 1-9 p.m. in the cafeteria of Scott M. Ellis Elementary School on Route 32.
