GUILDERLAND — As the district works on its budget for next year, the school board on Feb. 11 heard that increases in health-care costs alone exceed the tax cap while overall state aid remains flat.

The board also heard the transportation director’s proposal to acquire five more electric school buses next year at virtually no cost to taxpayers.

“We are going to have to rein in our overall expenses to address these spending challenges in light of net-zero state aid and less then a $2 million tax cap compared with our health-insurance increases,” Andrew Van Alstyne, assistant superintendent for business, told the board.

After years of not receiving its full Foundation Aid from the state, Guilderland, for the first time, got its fair share in 2023. This school year, the district received $25.6 million and next year, based on the governor’s executive budget proposal, is slated to receive $27 million, an increase of 5.6 percent.

Foundation Aid pays for roughly a fifth of Guilderland’s budget; Van Alstyne in December had projected a rollover budget of $130 million for Guilderland next year.

“Our overall aid projection is actually flat,” Van Alstyne told the board on Feb. 11, “because we have projected expected declines in building aid and transportation aid, but the Foundation Aid increase is a very welcome increase as we make the budget.”

The enacted 2024-25 state budget had called for the Rockefeller Institute to conduct a study to assess the Foundation Aid formula and share recommendations for modernizing and improving it.

The report found that the formula had become outdated and out-of-step with school district needs and responsibilities.

“The governor used some of these recommendations in her budget, including updating the measures of childhood poverty,” Van Alstyne said. 

Van Alstyne also said, “Most of our revenue is from local taxes.”

Property tax levy growth for New York’s school districts this year will remain capped at 2 percent for the fourth year in a row, according to data released by the State Comptroller’s Office.

The tax cap, which first applied to local governments (excluding New York City) and school districts in 2012, limits annual tax levy increases to the lesser of the rate of inflation or 2 percent with certain exceptions.

Although the levy limit is frequently referenced as 2 percent, Van Alstyne explained that it is actually determined by a complex formula.

“All of those calculations put into the formula and our maximum allowable increase for next year is 2.33 percent or $1.9 million,” said Van Alstyne.

Expenses continue to rise, Van Alstyne said, most notably for health care. The increase for next year is $2.2 million for health-care alone, which he stressed is “well over our tax cap.”

“This is posing a significant budget challenge,” he said.

A simple majority is needed to pass a budget that stays under the levy limit while a supermajority — more than 60 percent — is needed to pass a budget that goes over the cap.

Guilderland has never put up a budget over the levy limit.

Bus prop

Craig Lipps, Guilderland’s transportation director, recommended to the board that Guilderland purchase five more electric school buses for next year.

The public would have to approve the purchase on May 20 when the budget vote and school board elections are held although it would ultimately cost taxpayers nothing as the state is trying to promote the switch to buses that run without fossil fuel.

Lipps said his original recommendation was not to purchase any new buses next year since enrollment is decreasing and, with more efficient routing over the last year, “we’ve been able to better manage our resources and deliver pretty good service, meeting the needs of our students.

Lipps, who became the district’s transportation director a year ago, said the decision was made to take advantage of the free buses while they are available.

“This will allow Guilderland to experience the electric vehicles as part of our fleet,” he said, “reducing student and community exposure to emissions and other toxins that come out of the gas buses.”

If voters approve the measure, 10 percent of Guilderland’s fleet would be electric.

Last May, 70 percent of voters approved a $407,500 proposition to buy the district’s first two electric buses — a 65-passenger bus and a 30-passenger bus — and a Level 2 charging station meant to give the district a chance to learn how to drive and repair the vehicles, administrators said.

The cost was ultimately covered by an incentive program and state aid. Those buses are currently waiting for license plates and for cameras and radios to be installed.

Those buses are numbered 1 and 2. Lipps explained the numbers on combustion buses go up to 400. “So, with the electric buses, we started over,” he said.

The board last year made the electric-bus proposition separate from a $1.3 million proposition to purchase standard combustion buses, which passed with 72 percent of the vote, because of concerns some voters might oppose EVs.

  Schools have a state requirement that, starting in 2027, new buses must be zero-emissions — which means electric since hydrogen is not yet an option — and by 2035, all school buses must be zero-emissions.

However, there has been pushback on that mandate and it is not clear if it will hold.

“It is very likely to change,” Lipps told the board on Feb. 11 of the mandate. “Either way, we’re going to continue to work on doing our part.”

He said, if the proposition goes through, 10 percent of Guilderland’s fleet would be electric.

“Our current infrastructure will be able to support those electric vehicles and,” he said, “with the current grants and rebates again, the cost to the district is going to be nearly zero.”

Guilderland currently has 115 buses in its fleet and 62 bus routes. The district also contracts out six bus routes, with third-party providers.

Ninety-nine Guilderland buses are 10 years old or younger and the average age of the fleet is six years. A third of Guilderland buses have diesel engines while two-thirds have gas engines.

School buses are required by the state to be inspected twice a year. Guilderland’s pass rate over the last several years has topped 99 percent, Lipps reported.

The new buses, if the proposition passes, would be made by International Corporation, Lipps said.

“It’s built around the safety and comfort of the passengers as well as the driver,” he said. “We’re also proposing that we get them with air-conditioning ... I know that sounds crazy for an electric bus but we’re going to manage it carefully.

“It includes the chargers and setup,” said Lipps, which the first two buses did not. “We actually did that on our own. We learned a lot real ast.”

Additionally, Lipps said, a 2007 Chevy utility dump truck would be replaced with a similar model for approximately $110,000.

Other business

In other business at its Feb. 11 meeting, the Guilderland School Board:

— Adopted a calendar for the 2025-26 school year, which, for the first time, includes a day off for the Hindu holiday Diwali.

Guilderland High School junior Paarth Sarecha, who had presented the board with a petition signed by over 200 students, calling for the holiday, told the board, “Thank you so very much for all your consideration … I truly appreciate everything you’ve done”:

— Welcomed Nicole Melkun as the instructional administrator for elementary special education. Her probationary four-year term starts on March 3 with an annual salary of $100,000;

— Approved Lorraine Hansbury’s 1959 play, “A Raisin in the Sun,” for use by 11th-grade English students.

“Students will engage in issues about race, gender, and family and will pose questions based upon the American Dream, the strength of family, the conflict between expectations, and stereotypes and prejudice,” wrote teacher Erica Pfleegor in the review form;

— Were presented with an updated policy on the use of smart devices in school, a topic the board has discussed for months. The policy conforms to an initiative launched by Governor Kathy Hochul that would require schools statewide to ban student use of devices throughout the school day.

The proposed Guilderland policy states, “At the elementary school level, student personal electronic devices may not be brought to school. At the middle and high school level, student personal electronic devices must be turned off and put away from the time students enter the school building until the end of the school day, including time spent in class, lunch, study hall, detention, in-school suspension, and between classes. 

The policy grants exemptions “for bona fide medical, educational, or disability-related reasons”;

— Heard from board member Katie DiPierro that the Communications Committee continues to work on a new board of education award for students, replacing an award based on grades. The Heroes Award, she said, would be presented to high school students, nominated by teachers, “who have demonstrated exceptional acts of kindness, often highlighting positive behavior and promoting a culture of compassion within the school community.”

She went on, “These individuals have made a significant positive contribution to the school community often behind the scenes without seeking recognition or praise”; and

— Heard from Superintendent Marie Wiles that “Beauty & the Beast Jr.” will be performed at Farnsworth Middle School from Feb. 28 to March 2 while “My Favorite Year” will be performed by The Guilderland Players at the high school on March 6, 7, and 8.