UPDATE: School Board Holds Public Forums On School, Library Budgets

The Nanuet School Board will meet tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the high school media center, and at the meeting will be two public hearings, one on the proposed school budget and one for the proposed library budget.

The vote for both is Tuesday, May 21st.

The proposed school budget for next year is $64,599,768, which is a 3.33 percent increase in the budget from last year and a 1.09 increase in the tax levy. The proposed budget cuts:

• 8.8 teaching positions
• 4.8 teaching assistant positions
• 2.2 custodial positions
• 1.2 clerical positions
• 2.0 monitor positions

It also eliminates all freshmen and most assistant varsity coaching positions.

The biggest mandated increase in cost in the budget is a 34 precent increase in teachers’ retirement system, which goes up to $1,050,990. The employees' retirement system, another cost outside the board’s control, will go up 10 percent to $108,785. Other costs in the budget that the board has no control over include health insurance, which is up nine percent to $568,466, and the Pfizer bond, which is at $698,070 in the proposed budget.

The state aid in the proposed budget will increase by a bit more than $300,000, up to $5,752,097 in next year’s budget.

The vote on the school budget is May 21st from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the high school gym. Voter registration is Wednesday May 15th from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the high school.

The library board’s proposed budget is $2,772,850, up $318,850 from last year’s budget, and is also up for approval by the school board at Tuesday’s meeting. The budget includes extending the tax cap by about $225,000, or between 10 and 11 percent. The money is intended for the new air conditioning unit, as the current system is beyond its life expectancy, as well as bathroom renovation, exterior grounds work, updating the tables/seating and more.

The proposed library budget also includes $147,500 increase in personnel and personnel benefits from last year. The other major increases in the proposed budget come in major building repairs, which have a $117,000 increase, and electronic references and e-books, which have a $30,000 increase.

Some major decreases in the proposed budget come in the allocation of the fund balance, which drops down from $150,000 to $100,000 and the library collection, which decreases by $30,000.

Another item on tonight’s agenda is the continuation of a discussion about upgrading the district’s security cameras. At a meeting last month, Superintendent Mark McNeill spoke about the project, which would bring in an upgrade of surveillance cameras both inside schools and around the outside the buildings. The money will come from the capital projects fund. The plan is to upgrade the video surveillance system to a state-of-the-art digital recording system.