If the numbers shake out the way they were presented during Monday’s meeting of the Sag Harbor School Board, the district could see its 2024-25 budget top $50 million for the first time.
The year-over-year spending increase is proposed at 4.5 percent, bringing the budget up to $50.2 million from $48.1 million — driven largely by inflation and rising health insurance and retirement plan costs, school officials said this week. Simultaneously, the district is facing the possibility of losing $428,681 in state money, though that’s not set in stone until the New York State Legislature and governor settle on a state budget next month.
Still, Jennifer Buscemi, Sag Harbor’s business administrator, said she anticipates the district will come in well below the state-mandated cap on tax-levy increases. The district can do this, she said, by tapping into its reserves more than it has ever done before.
A proposed breakdown shows she is proposing the use of $750,000 from retirement reserves, an increase of 50 percent over the current year. The proposal is also to essentially double the amount of “unassigned, unappropriated fund balance” — meaning surplus money left over from the previous year’s budget — that the district would apply toward next year’s tax levy, going from $667,193 up to $1.33 million.
“Every district right now is having a hard time closing that budget gap,” Ms. Buscemi said.
The tax increase proposed for the 2024-25 budget is 2.8 percent, which is greater than the “2 percent tax cap” language that people are used to hearing about because of factors like each district’s debt payments and real estate development within the community. Sag Harbor has the ability to raise its tax levy by as much as 3.76 percent. Again, it’s not set in stone.
“These numbers may go up or down based on new information,” Ms. Buscemi said.
In addition to the budget itself, Sag Harbor voters will likely see two additional propositions on the May 21 ballot.
The first would be the purchase of four new buses for $508,252 using money from its transportation reserve account, which is flush with funds from the two smaller school districts for which Sag Harbor provides transportation as a shared service.
The second proposition would be to approve the release, from a capital reserve account, of another $2.4 million for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning upgrades across all Sag Harbor school facilities. Voters previously approved $2.5 million for the project, but the bids were rejected when cost estimates skyrocketed.
These two propositions “will not have an impact on the 2024-25 budget or tax levy,” Ms. Buscemi said, because the money is already available in voter-authorized reserve accounts.
The school board also heard a budget proposal for the Sag Harbor Elementary School and its dedicated prekindergarten facility, the Sag Harbor Learning Center, that “meets the instructional needs of all the student population,” Ms. Buscemi said.
Spending on supplies, textbooks, and after-school clubs would collectively bump the budgets up by 5.63 percent, up to $261,607 for these two facilities. These numbers do not include the salaries for the faculty and staff, which is considered a separate budget area.
The budget for Pierson Middle and High School, as well as all athletics programs, is to be presented on March 18 at 6:30 p.m. There will also be a workshop addressing technology, special education, and BOCES spending on April 8, ahead of the budget adoption on April 16.