Pleasantville Schools’ Proposed $61.3M Budget Squeaks in Under the Cap

The Pleasantville School District is proposing a $61.3 million budget for 2024-25 that is tax cap-compliant despite facing significant increases in students’ out-of-district special education and health insurance costs.

Assistant Superintendent for Business John Chow presented next year’s proposed spending plan last month to the Board of Education. Total expenditures are slated to rise by about $2 million, but the tax levy increase is held to 2.74 percent, .01 percent under the cap.

One of the biggest expenditure increases for the district is the 20 percent rise in costs for Pleasantville special education tuition for students attending BOCES. This year the district is paying $2.8 million for tuition costs, but that is project to increase to $3.4 million for the upcoming year.

Other key increases include health insurance premiums, which could increase nearly 7.5 percent for individuals and about 6 percent for a family. Costs for retirees on Medicare is projected to skyrocket by more than 15 percent.

“These numbers have a very large and negative impact on our budget,” Chow said. “Our tax cap is only 2.75 percent whereas health insurance premiums are pretty high.”

One bit of good news is the district’s teachers’ salaries will be nearly unchanged, rising just $9,000 from this year to next. The small increase is largely a result of nine teachers who will be retiring at the end of the current year, Chow said. The district also intends to hire one permanent substitute teacher but eliminate a high school special education teacher and a teaching assistant at Bedford Road School.

The district projects a five-student enrollment decline in 2024-25. Bedford Road Elementary School enrollment will decrease by two students, the middle school will see an increase of 20 students and high school student enrollment is forecast to decline by 23 students.

“We are graduating one of the largest high school classes of this year while the incoming class is smaller,” Chow noted.

One cost that is known involves the rising tuition for special Pleasantville students who live in the district but attend school elsewhere. The district also expects a decrease in tuition-paying students from those living outside the area.

Although state aid for many districts is in danger of declining in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s state budget, Pleasantville expects to receive nearly $300,000 more in overall aid to about $7.4 million.

“The government office came up with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) of 2.4 percent for the last 10 years,” Chow explained. “But the true CPI is really 4.2 percent. Right now, we are advocating for having that number increased and hopefully our message is being heard.”

Helping the budget bottom line is the Assessment Growth Factor, which stands at 0.75 percent. That figure represents the growth in assessable properties. The district expects a $1.1 million increase in revenues from real property taxes, to $41,296,705.

About $455,000 is being allotted for capital projects, which includes replacing bleachers in the high school gym and renovating two bathrooms at the middle school and four bathrooms at the high school.

Formal adoption of the budget by the Board of Education is scheduled for Apr. 16. The public hearing is on May 7 and the annual budget vote and school board election is set for May 21.

Budget information, including videos of prior meetings and PowerPoint presentations on the proposed budget can be found at https://pleasantvilleschools.org. Budget information can be found on the Business/HR Office page.

Mt. Pleasant School Budget

Last month, the Mount Pleasant School District administration proposed a $79.7 million budget carrying a 2.73 percent tax rate increase.

On Mar. 13, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Peter Giarrizzo introduced a proposed tax-cap-compliant budget that increases the levy by 2.81 percent.

Pressures of declining state aid and sharp increases in benefits totaling about $1 million.

“Because we don’t have the big influx of foundation aid that we’ve had in the past and building aid, you’ll see that the staffing increases are much less pronounced because we would be adding this to the budget that are increasing expenses,” Giarrizzo told the board during his presentation.

Health insurance premiums are projected to increase by 11 percent next year, costing the district an extra $800,000. Contributions to the Employees Retirement System will rise by nearly $150,000 while the Teacher’s Retirement System payments will rise $174,000, he said.

Proposed staffing additions include converting the part-time coordinator of safety and security to full-time, a $67,000 expense, and an additional security guard at the Westlake campus.

The district will be using about $1,850,000 that it saved in a tax certiorari settlement and is required to be transferred from reserves. It will help balance the budget and add in another $200,000 from fund balance, said Director of Business Administration Margaret Modugno. Another $1.6 million will be used for district infrastructure improvements.