Stable spending, lower revenue result in 4.99% Lowville Central School tax increase in 2019-2020 budget
The core strategy is simple, according to District Superintendent
The new school budget adopted by the school board at its Monday meeting would increase property taxes by 4.99 percent, if approved by district voters
The tax hike would increase the school's revenue by almost
Direct school district associated spending is increasing
The largest portion of overall increased costs in the next fiscal year is from the BOCES capital project, which requires school districts to contribute to the
Expenditures like state retirement funds for teachers and employees are down by
"Those programs are driven by the stock market," said School Business Manager
Cost projections for energy and diesel decreased by 10 percent to
"We really looked at every single area to make reductions," said
Overall, revenue is decreasing about
"The board has known from the onset so we've been preparing for that, setting aside reserves and planning for the long term," said
According to information provided by
The new PILOT deal, facilitated by the
Part of that planning is the proposed tax increase after more than a decade of low or no tax increases for district taxpayers.
"We need to start raising taxes to get our taxes where they should be," said
In the 2005-2006 fiscal year, the school tax went down by 7.5 percent. Two years later, in the 2008-2009 budget, taxes went down again by 7.23 percent. Both decreases were a result of revenue influx from Maple Ridge PILOT payments.
Taxes remained at 2009 levels until the 2014-2015 budget, when they were raised by 1.95 percent, and have increased just under 2 percent every year since.
The addition of this year's almost 5 percent increase, puts the tax levy over what it was before the PILOT payments began.
"We've been able to do a lot with the pilot money. We stabilized taxes for a number of years because of it, did capital projects at no cost to the taxpayers and alleviated debt," said
Although fund balances are still healthy at this point,
A public presentation and hearing on the 2019-2020 budget will be held at
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