Voters in Marlborough approved the 2020-21 school budget of $58,363,438 by a vote of 1,336 to 681. The public also returned incumbent  John Cantone to the Board of Education with 1,275 votes and added two new members, Michael Connors with 1,085 votes and James Mullen with 1,108 votes. James Kuha and Jeff Hacker did not win seats, coming up short with 871 and 486 votes respectively.

Superintendent Michael Brooks was pleased the voters approved the 2020-21 school budget.

“It’s wonderful news for the Marlboro community,” he said. “We always want to put together a program that is positive and beneficial for our children but also respectful of our taxpayers limitations and obviously we struck that balance with nearly 74% yes votes..”  

Brooks said out of approximately 8,400 ballots that were sent out, just over 2,000 were returned and counted. 

Brooks said he is looking forward to working with the two new elected board members. 

“This board is a forward thinking and responsible board in their programming and is fiscally responsible and it sounds like that’s where the board electees are as well,” he said. “There is a synergy that develops as a new board starts to gather and we will have our first meeting as a new Board of Education and our Administrative team on July 2^nd for our reorganization meeting.”

The Highland School budget for 2020-21 of $44,946,339 passed by a vote of 1,729 to 823. 

A bus proposition for (2) 65 passenger and (3) 30 passenger vehicles passed by a vote of 1,618 to 916.  

School Board incumbents Alan Barone and Heather Welch retained their seats by 1,984 and 2,031 votes respectively. They ran unopposed. Superintendent Thomas Bongiovi said, “We’re certainly very thankful to the voters of Highland for approving the budget and the bus proposition. There was a lot of time and effort put in by the Central Administration and the Board of Education to put forth a budget that would provide for the needs of the district at a price that the taxpayers could afford. I’m looking forward to another great year.”

The Wallkill Central School District’s 2020-2021 budget was approved. 2,509 people voted to approve the budget while 1,330 voted against its acceptance. The ballot featured a second proposition, which was also approved. This was in regards to the purchase of a building located at 1500 NYS Route 208 in Wallkill to replace the current administrative building. 2,499 people voted in favor of the purchase and 1,323 were opposed. 

Wallkill’s accepted budget is $77,697,248, a 1.53 percent increase from the 2019-2020 school year. The budget maintains low class sizes for grades K-12 to allow for enhanced learning opportunities, maintains support services to address the social-emotional needs of students and continues the assignment of police officers in all five school buildings. 

Kathryn Anderson, Vincent Petroccelli and David Bartolone were elected to the Wallkill Central School District Board of Education. Four candidates were seeking three open seats. Anderson, a board member since 2002, earned 2,819 votes and Petroccelli, a board member since 2008, garnered 2,563 votes. Bartolone will join the board after earning 2,149 votes. 2,038 votes were cast for candidate Michael Rose. The school budget vote and board of education election results will be certified as official at Thursday night’s board of education meeting.

Superintendent of School Kevin Castle was pleased with the results of the board of education election and school budget vote.

“I was very pleased with the outcome,” he said. “We have such a supportive community and our students, faculty and staff are very lucky to have a supportive community. If it wasn’t for the support of our community, we would not be able to provide the programs for our students.”