The Saugerties Central School District hosted a virtual community forum on October 1 regarding its building conditions and a proposed plan to address the highest priority needs through a tax-neutral Capital Project. (Photo by Dion Ogust)
Voters in the Saugerties Central School District approved a $66.5 million budget for the 2021-22 school year by a margin of 792-254 on Tuesday, May 18.
The spending plan is 2.2 percent larger than the 2020-21 budget; the tax levy of $41.52 million represents an increase of 0.1 percent.
Incumbent trustees Raymond Maclary, James Mooney and Board President Robert Thomann were unopposed in their bids to stay on the Board of Education.
“I’m very pleased,” said Superintendent Kirk Reinhardt. “I just think it shows what an amazing community it is. The (School) Board, the staff, the community, you all have one vision to create the best learning environment for all students to reach their success. I couldn’t be more proud to work here and this is just an amazing community. Their unselfishness is beyond reproach.
“We had a very small budget increase,” Reinhardt said. “We didn’t add a lot of programming. And our next step is our federal funding, and we have our town hall meeting on Thursday, May 20, and we’ll present some of our suggestions to the community on how to use that money to make sure we’re a hundred percent open in the fall. And we’re taking care of our learning loss and putting in some social and emotional support for our students to come back; they had to deal with some trauma during all of this (pandemic). So it’s exciting that we just keep moving forward.”
