During a budget hearing held last week during a meeting of the Saugerties Central School District’s Board of Education, Superintendent Daniel Erceg’s presentation stopped just short of announcing the total of the 2025-26 preliminary spending plan that will go before voters in two months.
What is known so far is that the district is working with a maximum of a 3.43 percent tax levy increase if it wants to pass its spending plan by a simple majority. That increase totals $1,568,654. The state’s cap mandate is based on a variety of factors, including the district’s tax base growth, community-wide PILOT agreements, capital expense costs, plus a two percent limit on inflation increases.
“The calculation is quite confusing and complicated,” said Superintendent Erceg during the Tuesday, March 11 presentation. Some of the factors include both present figures and future estimates.
The district’s preliminary figures also include data from Governor Kathy Hochul’s February statewide budget proposal, which would see the district receive an additional $703,629 in state aid, an increase of 2.67 percent. That increase includes a $293,211 bump in pre-K aid, an increase of 62.5 percent.
“This is her projection and her proposal, this is not what has passed yet,” said Erceg, noting that there are at least a few more weeks of the annual legislative tug-of-war before the state budget is finalized.
Other factors impacting the SCSD’s 2025-26 budget plans include the start of the district’s share of Ulster BOCES iPark 87 annual lease payments, which for Saugerties totals $231,070; a six percent composite increase in health insurance costs; a total cost of around $50,000 for classroom window air-conditioning units; and the $47,048 cost of implementing a statewide campus cell phone ban.
“As part of the governor’s proposal, she’s proposing a bell-to-bell cell phone ban,” Erceg said. “There is supposedly supposed to be legislation for the (cost) to be reimbursed. We have not seen what that would look like. But this $47,000 represents going out and getting a bag for each student to lock their phone up during the course of the day.”
There have also been four recent insurance claims for facilities damages at Cahill and Riccardi elementary schools, and the high school, which are negatively impacting insurance costs.
“Full transparency: There is concern that they may actually drop us because of the number of claims that we’ve had,” Erceg said.
The district will see some savings by not replacing two departing central office administrators in the roles of director of HR and elementary project coordinator, one athletic director/assistant principal; the athletic director will be filled by stipend.
As it has done in the past, the district could offset any potential funding shortfalls by tapping into its various reserves, including an unassigned fund balance that currently stands at $3,147,486. Erceg acknowledged the likelihood of having to do that this year, but did not share actual figures.
“Right now we’re not on track to use all of that $3 million,” he said. “That’s what I’m going to say.”
District officials are planning on updating their preliminary budget by the next meeting of the school board, scheduled for Tuesday, April 8. Numerous public budget forums will follow over the next month and a half. The public will have their say on the budget and three open seats on the board of education at the polls on Tuesday, May 20.
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