GUILDERLAND — Guilderland school district residents will vote on a $127,547,392 school budget on May 20.

All eight board members present at their April 8 meeting voted in favor of adopting the spending plan.

Only one, Rebecca Butterfield, asked a question. She asked about “waiting to see what the governor’s budget is.”

The deadline for a state budget is April 1 but the legislature and governor typically negotiate past that date, as is the case this year, leaving school boards across New York in the lurch.

Superintendent Marie Wiles responded that April 21 is the last possible date the board could adopt a budget “and hope to get all of our materials out.”

Wiles surmised the state may not have a budget even by then and said the state budget would “likely not have any additional revenue for us.”

Guilderland based its revenue figures on the governor’s proposal, which included about a 6-percent increase in Foundation Aid.

The spending plan comes right up against the state-set levy limit but does not pierce it. This means a simple majority vote can pass the budget. While spending is up 1.88 percent from last year, the tax levy is up 2.3 percent.

Administrators had delayed their budget presentation by three weeks, to March 25, as they looked for the least harmful cuts to close a sizable gap between revenues and expenditures.

Initially, the district had projected a rollover budget — keeping all programs and services the same — of $130 million for next year, an increase of 4 percent over this year.

The health-insurance increase alone, of $2.3 million, is more than the allowable levy increase, of $1.8 million.

Guilderland had drained the reserves it had set aside to cover the many tax challenges filed by property owners after the town’s revaluation and so took out a bond to cover the costs, with payments totalling $747,000 overall.

During the board’s last several meetings, parents, teachers, students, teaching assistants, and community members spoke or wrote to the board, objecting to proposed cuts.

On April 8, the board received five written public comments addressing the two most controversial cuts: to teaching assistants for first grade, and to reducing the fourth-grade classes at Altamont Elementary School from three to two.

The initial budget proposal had cut all eight teaching assistants for the first grade since they were retiring. The final budget restores 70 percent of those posts.

Rachel McCormick wrote about the importance of teaching assistants in the first grade, “a crucial year to set a good foundation in reading and writing.” And Jim Gaughan suggested “the district may be having trouble filling those positions” and recommended paying them more.

The remaining three comments, from Jason Roberts, the Kullman family, and Amanda Stygar, focused on the need to keep three classes for fourth grade at Altamont Elementary School.

“With a $127 million budget, it’s extremely frustrating that you are cutting directly from the classroom — the very heart of our children’s education,” wrote Stygar.

The class sizes at all five of Guilderland’s elementary schools stay within the district guidelines — 18 to 23 students in classes for kindergartner through second grade, and 21 to 25 students for third- through sixth-grade classes. And the budget allows for three teaching posts to be assigned if enrollment surpasses those guidelines.

Wiles thanked the board for adopting the budget and said, “I’ll just acknowledge that this was one of our more challenging budget development seasons. It took a lot of time to get to this place. And I just want to thank everyone who played a part and to the board for your patience and your understanding as we found our way to this place.”

On May 20, school district voters will also be deciding on a $57 million capital project, which district leaders have described as making the schools future-ready — upgrading all seven schools and adding to the high school; $4.5 million of that cost is being covered by a capital reserve fund.

And voters will be electing school board members. Petitions for board candidates to run for four seats are due on April 21, with at least 43 signatures. 

The board has nine members and the posts, typically with three-year terms, are unpaid.

Three out of four Guilderland School Board incumbents — Meredith Brière, Katie DiPierro, and Kelly Person — are planning to run for re-election on May 20.

Gloria Towle-Hilt has decided to retire after serving for 18 years on the board.

Other business

In other business, the Guilderland School Board on April 8:

— Heard a presentation from members of Farnsworth Middle School’s Future City team who would like to continue the program in high school.

Anika Bhupati, Darshana Saravanakumar, Andrew Smith, Levi Hawrylchak, and Justin Jian spoke passionately about the worth of the Future City program, in which participants envision and then build a model city.

The Farnsworth team won the national competition in 2024 and this year came in second.

“Without the Future City program,” said Hawrylchak, “I wouldn’t have been able to learn as in-depth on topics like climate change, green energy, and city zoning …. I got to learn about things like woodworking, gear rations, and wiring for simple circuitry, which all have real-life applications.”

Wiles responded, “You need to find an adult who will serve as your advisor at the high school.” She said the application would then be reviewed by the board, which applauded the students’ presentation;

—Also applauded and gave a standing ovation for the board’s long-time clerk, Linda Livingston, who will be retiring in May. Wiles described Livingston as “very talented, ever patients, very gifted”;

— Heard from Dierdre Depew that her son “is having a wonderful year.” Last year, Depew and other parents spoke to the school board about concerns that their students’ special needs weren’t being met at Guilderland High School. 

Depew on April 8 thanked the board for “hiring the wonderful new teacher.” She went on, “I know you listened last year, and you put in a lot of time and effort to make some well needed changes.”

She went on to note the added burdens taken on by special-education teachers, stating, “There’s a lot of extra administrative burden because our kids can’t communicate.” Depew recommended more support for the teachers.

She congratulated the board on its support for removing personal electronic devices during the school day, saying her son had “been exposed to inappropriate materials” on another student’s device.

Finally, speaking on behalf of other parents, Depew said that special-education students get only 172 instructional days rather than the 180 other students get since they are not at school during the eight days Regents exams are given.

Other districts, she said, provide instruction for special-education students during exam days;

— Heard from Wiles that May 23 will be a school holiday as long as schools don’t have to close for snow or an emergency before Memorial Day weekend. Monday, May 26, is already a school holiday; and

— Adopted, in two 7-1 votes, tax breaks for seniors and handicapped district residents with low incomes. Butterfield cast the dissenting vote.

“This relates to the change in how income is calculated from how it was previously calculated,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business Andrew Van Alstyne.

The resolutions say that the district is not including distributions from an individual retirement account or individual retirement annuity.

The ceiling is being raised from the current $29,000 to $35,000 rather than to the $50,000 now allowed by the state.