26-02-2025
Waterford school board to vote on proposed 6.5% budget increase
Waterford — The school board is set to vote Thursday on the proposed $61.36 million school budget for 2025-26 and its 6.5% increase.
The spending plan is about $3.8 million more than the current school budget.
After the board's vote at its 6 p.m. meeting at Town Hall, the budget will be sent to the Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting for approval.
The board has already held two budget workshops this month during which board members looked for places to cut the initial $61.46 million plan proposed by Superintendent Thomas Giard.
Board Chairwoman Pat Fedor said there wasn't much wiggle room" to reduce the budget without sacrificing staff, their benefits or necessary equipment.
"One percent of our budget was really all we had control over," Fedor said.
That's because Giard said the other 99% of the increase is due to staff raises and health insurance benefits, along with the replacement of Chromebooks for students. Replacements are needed every 5 to 6 years.
Fedor said as a result, no major changes were made to the budget at the workshops, including to current staffing. The $95,000 reduction that was done by eliminating a new $60,000 information technologies position while a $35,000 grant was found to fund pre-kindergarten equipment.
"Nobody gets adversely impacted," Fedor said. "We're not laying anybody off.
Giard said new contracts with raises for school administrators and paraprofessionals take effect in the 2025-26 budget.
In the proposed budget, two full-time teaching positions and two half-time positions left vacant due to retirements or resignations will be replaced by two multilingual teachers and a pre-kindergarten position.
A presentation to the school board last month showed the number of multilingual learners, which most often refers to students who are learning English as a second language, has tripled over the past years. State law requires a bilingual program be added at Oswegatchie Elementary School in 2025-26 and likely another at Quaker Hill Elementary School in 2026-27.
Giard said the proposed budget also addresses the need by adding two multilingual tutors costing $75,000. The tutors will work under the guidance of the multilingual teachers, he said.
Also added to the proposed budget is $25,000 for a part-time World Language teaching position to help replace a retiring language teacher.
