Mount Pleasant Schools Budget Set for Public Vote
After weeks of discussion, the Mount Pleasant Board of Education made it official last week. A $51.3 million 2011-12 budget, which includes a 3.9 percent property tax hike, will be put for voter approval on May 17.
North Castle residents of the district would have their property taxes rise by 9.8 percent if voters okay the spending plan, which was unanimously adopted by the trustees at their April 13 meeting.
“It was a very difficult budget season,” school board President Francine Aloi said last week.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Susan Guiney originally proposed a $50.7 million budget for next year with a proposed .2.7 percent property tax increase. Guiney’s first budget proposal called for several cuts, including a plan to increase K-5 class sizes by two to three pupils at each grade level.
The cuts, especially the hike in class sizes, met with opposition by both parents and trustees at school board meetings this spring. At the request of the board of education, Guiney came back with a revised budget of $51.3 million that restored most of the reductions, including a provision to maintain K-5 class sizes at the current levels. District officials included an additional $100,000 in state aid as compared to the original budget because some of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed state aid cuts for the district were restored by the state Legislature.
But even the revised ledger approved by the school board last week includes cuts, including staff reductions. The budget that will go before the voters has the equivalent of 16.2 staff reductions, including 6.7 fewer teaching positions. But even with the cuts, Guiney said a previous school board meeting educational programs would not be harmed.
At prior school board meetings, “Not all of us agreed on every single item,” Aloi said last week. But the trustees ultimately came to a unanimous consensus on the revised budget, she said.
