21-05-2025
VVS budget fails: What happens now?
VERNON, NY (WUTR/WFXV/WPNY) — Voters went to the polls all over the Mohawk Valley on Tuesday to vote on school budgets for the 2025-26 school year. While most of the budgets passed with considerable margins, one managed to get the disapproval of voters.
The Vernon-Verona-Sherrill budget failed on Tuesday, May 20, needing a supermajority of 60% due to its tax levy increase of just under six percent. However, its 612-574 approval did not meet that criteria, which leaves its board of education making plans for next steps.
The district's $48 million budget only carried with it an increase of less than one percent from last year's budget.
With the failure of this budget, the school board — of whom three are newly elected as of Tuesday night — will have to consider one of two options:
move forward with a contingency budget or
revote the budget, either as-is or reworked.
Should the board send a contingency budget to a vote, the district would have to cut almost $1 million — just over one percent — from the current budget. According to the district's newsletter, that would mean suspending or outright eliminating programs and reducing staff. It could also mean losing extracurricular activities, including all athletic programs.
An adoption of a contingency budget would also mean — according to New York State Education Law — that the district would not be able to move forward with a proposed capital project at E.A. McAllister Elementary in Sherrill. The district would also be forced to charge organizations for the use of school facilities.
According to the district's newsletter, a budget re-vote is scheduled for Tuesday, June 17. There is no set date yet for the board to meet to work on a contingency budget or rework the defeated budget.
Meanwhile, the other measure for the district — bonding for the purchase of four buses and two vans — passed by a vote of 742-440. Alana Boylan, Jamie Jones, and Thomas Moats all won seats to the Board of Education.
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