NEW SCOTLAND — The Voorheesville School Board this week unanimously voted to place before voters on May 16 a $30.1 million budget for the 2023-24 school year. 

If approved, next year’s budget would represent a 6.9-percent increase over this year and a 2.5-percent increase in the property-tax levy, which is estimated to be about $20.2 million, and translates to under a 1-percent tax-rate increase, according to the district. 

Also on May 16, voters will be asked to choose two school board members. 

Candidate petitions are due by April 17. 

Board President Rachel Gilker is up for re-election, as is the seat currently occupied by Barbara Owens, who was appointed to the board in September after James Coffin stepped down over the summer. 

Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations James Southard previously explained to board members the district’s “true value” tax rate is about $16 per $1,000 assessed value, meaning that, although the tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value is about $20.25 in New Scotland, $18 in Guilderland, and about $33 in Berne, the uniform percentage that each municipality is multiplied by — set by the state at 81, 91, and 50 percent respectively — gets those numbers to roughly $16 per $1,000.

The school board had been discussing bigger tax breaks for veterans and volunteer first responders, which would increase taxes for most other property owners, but tabled those discussions, citing a lack of information. 

The district is slated to receive a total of $8.9 million from New York State next year although the state legislature has extended its April 1 budget deadline to April 10, so that figure is not solid.

The expected $X8.9 million in state aid represents an approximately 17-percent bump over this year, which can be attributed to an increase in Foundation Aid, and is set to increase from about $4.37 million to about $5.66 million. 

Voorheesville’s other sources of revenue for next year are an approximate $750,000 fund-balance allocation and $40,000 from the federal government.

On the expenditure side, the district’s largest outlays are set to be:

— Salaries, at $14.5 million, up 8.6 percent from this year;

— Medical and dental insurance, at $5.9 million, an increase of 6.6 percent from this year; 

— Board of Cooperative Educational Services payments, at $3.1 million, an 8.7-percent increase over this year;

— Contractual payments, at $1.98 million, up 5.2 percent; and 

— Retirement payments, at $1.47 million, an increase of 3.5 percent from this year. 

New positions

Two positions the district will be looking to add next year are an assistant principal for the middle and high school and a dean-counselor at the elementary school. 

At a January meeting of the school board’s ad-hoc safety committee, while explaining why he couldn’t recommend the addition of a school resource officer for next year, Superintendent Frank Macri said there are “other layers” that need to be in place before he could recommend a resource officer for the district. 

“If we bring in an SRO, now they would become a pseudo-assistant principal and pseudo-dean. And it really isn’t what we need. That’s not what their job is,” Macri said. 

The superintendent instead recommended the creation of a teacher-on-special-assignment position at the elementary school, which would act as a half dean of students and half guidance counselor. The dean-counselor, Macri said, would be considered a teacher (since the position would fall under that union’s contract), and not an administrator. 

Macri noted that the current elementary principal, Jeff Vivenzio, spends 45 minutes every morning and afternoon on bus duty, which is supervision a dean should be doing. “That’s time that he could be working with staff, doing instructional models, doing other things that he should be doing,” Macri said in January. 

At the middle and high school, Macri recommended a new assistant principal, which would be a new administrator position.

Joe Sapienza, Voorheesville’s athletic director, is currently filling the role of dean, which Macri said was “impossible” to do. “Like, it’s really just impossible,” because the dean is supposed to be the assistant principal for grades six through 12, because of all that position encompasses.

“You have to know every single kid’s name, you’ve got to be in the lunchroom, you’ve got to be in the hallways ... you have to know the interactions, you have to be on top of those referrals [when a matter, in this case disciplinary, is referred by a teacher to the administration],” Macri said. “To be a disciplinarian, it’s a full-time job.

At the middle school, Macri said, when there is a disciplinary or peer-conflict issue to be dealt with, it’s the middle-school counselor who is taking on that role, effectively becoming a “pseudo-dean,” which is “really not his role … His role should be doing some mediations and doing those things, but he’s got a guidance counselor’s job that he’s supposed to be doing.”

The person filling the new assistant-principal position would also take on the work of the district’s equity officer, a task currently being split between himself and Director of Curriculum Karen Conroy, Macri said.