District officials in the New Paltz Central School District (NPCSD) last week presented a $76,330,000 preliminary budget for the 2025-26 school year, a 3.5 percent increase over the current spending plan.
“I always take a moment to thank the taxpayers at this point,” said superintendent Stephen Gratto during a budget presentation at the Wednesday, March 5 meeting of the Board of Education. “Because every year our budget passes at a pretty high rate.”
In the two previous budget votes since Gratto arrived in New Paltz, the $71.5 million budget for the 2023-24 school year passed 1,012-274; while the $73.5 million 2024-25 spending plan passed 867-193.
“If you vote for the budget, you will be voting for a 4.35 percent tax increase,” Gratto said. “That does not mean, of course, that your taxes go up by 4.35 percent, it really means that that’s what we take out of the community. So whatever tax levy we took from the community for taxes last year, we’re going to ask for an additional 4.35 percent for 2025-2026.Your taxes might go up by 4.35 percent, but really it’s based upon the assessed value of your house and how that assessed value compares to the assessed values of all those around you.”
Gratto said that the district relies on roughly 70 percent of its funding from local taxpayers, with the state kicking in around 27 percent.
“It’s always worth mentioning that the state does not support us at the level that we need to support us,” Gratto said. “And the reason is because they do not see us as a needy school district. They see us as a wealthy school district.”
The state’s funding calculations are based on the New York State Education Department’s combined wealth ratio formula, which in its simplest terms takes into account a community’s real property values and the income of residents living in the district.
The NPCSD’s current combined wealth ratio calculation is 1.159, with only Onteora (2.4) and Rondout Valley (1.3) ranking higher.
“So we are one of the most wealthy districts in one of the most wealthy communities in our (area), according to the state,” Gratto said, adding that the district’s poverty rate (27.7 percent) is low compared to other local district.
“We don’t need a whole lot of support, which is unfortunate,” he said.
Gratto added that while the district’s fiscal stress score has risen from 0 in 2022 to 16.7 now, it’s not yet a worrying sign.
“We’re still far, far from being stressed,” he said. “But it is noticeable that it is changing.”
Also changing, but not by much, is an increase in anticipated state aid by around $90,000.
“They are not keeping up with the times,” Gratto said. “We can’t do much with that.”
In the current iteration of the 2025-26 spending plan, the district would need to make up around $3 million to break even.
“That doesn’t sound good, but actually it’s better than the last two years,” Gratto said. “This isn’t good news, but it’s not as dire as the last two years.”
Some of that could be made up by tapping into the district’s $8,590,000 fund balance, but Gratto said that money is there for future needs.
“Out of that $8 million, $1.3 million has already been promised to be spent, he said. “It was money set aside to buy things from this year’s budget.”
District officials are recommending using around $1.9 million in unrestricted fund balance, as well as tapping into other areas, like $300,000 from the district’s retirement reserve, and $154,000 left over from a 2015 capital project.
“If you do this, if you use all of this money, it is $2.3 million, which is more than we have used in past years,” Gratto said. “And even if you do that, you still have to reduce expenses by $800,000.”
To hit that target, Gratto said the district could eliminate one full-time middle school social studies teacher, as well as one technology position and a high school ELA teacher. Not filling vacancies in a digital electronics teacher and two elementary special education positions, as well would help complete the journey to a balanced budget.
“These are made possible because of the fact that we have a small number of special ed students who need integrated co-teaching classes in kindergarten and first grade,” Gratto said of the open pair of elementary special education positions that would remain unfilled. “We have two sections and we anticipate being able to go down to one section and still be able to fit the students very easily.”
The district has a long way to go before the school board adopts the budget ahead of a Tuesday, May 20 public vote, with trustees traditionally advocating for both taxpayers and students.
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