Last week the Highland School board continued working on the 2023-24 budget, with Highland Business Administrator Lindsay Eidel giving a presentation on state aid and revenues.

Eidel recalled that, at the last board meeting, they focused on the tax levy, “which is about 60 percent of our overall budget.” She said the revenue budget is made up of the Tax Levy Limit, State Aid and other revenue sources.

In reviewing the calculations for the tax levy limit, Eidel said in January the district had their first projected tax levy total of $30,636,752. She noted that since then there were a few changes made in the PILOTs [payment lieu of taxes] programs after receiving word from the town that they had increased from an initial estimate of $44,565 to $51,169.

Eidel said, after speaking with the district’s financial planners, “We got our solid number for our Capital Exclusions, which we estimated in January at $1.5 million but the total number is $1,574,466.”

Eidel said these changes increased the district’s initial total tax levy limit in January of $1,210,275 to $1,277,290, which will be the levy that the district will submit to the Office of the State Comptroller by the March 1 deadline. There are no plans to override the tax cap.

Eidel spoke at length on the State Aid the district will receive next year. She pointed out that within Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Executive budget there is an increase in Foundation Aid to Highland from this year’s $10,674,481 to $12,652,841 for 2023-24, “while many of the other expense based categories are experiencing either a reduction or an increase,” resulting in an overall increase of more than $2 million.

Eidel said the district’s BOCES Aid has increased by $206,622 from $1.2 million to $1.4 million. In addition, there is a combined decrease of $80,772 in both the High-Cost Excess Cost [for providing Special Education and related services for students with disabilities], and the Private Excess Costs, [for special education students placed in day or residential programs at State Education Department approved schools]. She said this is due to student program placements and graduation, “but where we see a decrease we also see an increase on the Hardware and Technology line by $17,445 as well as on the Software, Library and Textbook line [by $54,524].”

Eidel said there is a decrease of $146,888 in Transportation Aid for a total of $1,575,537.

“This is due to the Covid years when we were given the aid but we didn’t necessarily drive those miles,” Eidel said. “This is the state’s way of rectifying that and we could see another decrease in that for three years, but we don’t know.”

Eidel said there is also a small increase of $10,954 in next year’s building aid line for a total of $1,642,202. She expects there will be increases in future years due to the capital project.

Eidel summed up the status of the expected draft revenues: the expectation of State Aid of $18,565,497; Federal Medicaid remaining stable at $150,000; PILOTs up by $7,184 to $51,169; other revenue sources on investment income and interest up by $83,000 for a total of $650,000; the Applied Debt Service Reserve, previously at $256,110, zeros out due to a cash payment made to BOCES last year for their capital project and will not be paid next year; and the district will tap the Fund Balance by $1,150,000, the same as last year, to offset the tax levy for 2023-24. Eidel said this leaves the total levy, which the district is submitting on March 1, at $31,914,042 – an increase of $1,277,290 from the current school year.

Eidel pointed out that the district’s expected revenues total $52,480,708 for next year, which is up by $3,482,127 from the current school year. She said at the next few board meetings she will be giving presentations on the districts expected expenses.

Eidel offered a preview on a bus referendum, which will be voted on at the March 14 school board meeting and will be presented to the public at the budget vote in May. The district is planning to purchase a 65-passenger bus for $166,096 and a second 30 passenger bus for $100,660 for a total of $266,756. The costs include safety and communication equipment. It was noted that prices for small buses has gone up by 23 percent and for larger buses by 27 percent.

The public vote on the 2023-24 budget is set for Tuesday, May 16.