Massena Central presenting voters with $74.4 million budget, no tax levy increase
May 12—MASSENA — With the state budget now finalized, the Massena Central School District has firm figures in place for its $74.4 million budget proposal for 2025-26.
Superintendent Ronald P. Burke said that, as projected, they'll be presenting district residents with a 0% tax levy increase when they head to the polls on May 20.
"This spending plan is a $2,079,638 increase over the prior year. Despite this increase, the local taxpayer share of the budget will have a 0% increase. The increases are going to be covered by our additional state aid funding," he said.
The district's property tax cap this year was calculated at 4.49%.
"Again, we do not need additional money from our taxpayers. Therefore, the tax that we're asking for is an increase of zero dollars," Burke said.
Projected expenses include $30,309,090 for salaries, $20,700,475 for employee benefits, $3,951,150 for principal and interest, $1,810,068 for buses and equipment, $11,429,759 for Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and $6,202,397 for others, which includes textbooks and other requests.
"Because we are an educational agency, most of our expenses are related to people. It's our employees, salaries and benefits," Burke said.
The bulk of the revenue comes from state and federal aid, which accounts for $51,418,033. That's followed by $15,158,005 from taxes, $3,137,000 from use of money, $1,517,170 from miscellaneous, and $300,000 from interfund transfers. The district is using $2,872,731 from its appropriated fund balance to balance the budget.
Based on Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul's budget proposal, they had anticipated receiving $37,787,070 in foundation aid, an increase of $1.978,480.
"Based on the enacted budget, that number is going to increase by a little over $800,000 on our foundation aid to $38.6 million. Last year we saw a $1.4 million increase, and this year that increase doubled. So we have some really positive news there," Burke said. "Most of the other line items on the state aid side remain the same. So, again, we know we're getting some more money on the state side for next year."
He said, among the "major cost drivers" are health insurance ($463,265), new salaries ($300,000), BOCES Career and Technical Education ($225,794), and BOCES administrative services ($207,341).
The new salaries include speech, school psychologist, and a combination of art and academic intervention services, all positions that he said are needed.
"Speech is one of the biggest needs that we face, and it's also a need for our children that attend UPK (universal pre-kindergarten)," he said.
Also included among the major cost drivers are a fifth bus ($180,000) and a new vehicle lease program with Enterprise ($106,000).
"We have a number of vehicles that are truly at or beyond their life expectancy. That includes pickup trucks with plows. It includes some of our maintenance vans that are used by our maintenance folks. To go out and replace all of these in one year is not cost-effective. We've been looking at a lease program through Enterprise, and this lease program would in the first year have a price tag of $106,000. That's the maximum. That's without the trades. So, once we do our trades, we know that number is going to come in lower. We just don't know how much lower," Burke said.
He said they would realize a savings of approximately $250,000 over a 10-year period by switching to the lease program.
The district is also seeing additional costs for the village to provide a school resource officer from the Massena Police Department. That increase is $80,000.
"The village of Massena was arbitrarily charging us around $70,000 to $80,000. That's not the true cost of our SRO, and the village is basically requiring that if we want to maintain that relationship, we do need to pay the full cost of the individual. There are still other costs that are associated with the SRO that the village is still picking up," Burke said. "We need to keep in mind that there is a little bit of give and take on this, that we're not paying for the police vehicle, we are not paying for the equipment that the police officer has, we're not paying for the training."
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