BERNE – Berne-Knox-Westerlo voters passed next year’s $22.3 million spending plan Tuesday and handed a three-year school-board term to an unopposed candidate.

Voters also approved three propositions — for establishing a facilities reserve fund, 375 to 127, establishing a transportation reserve fund, 380 to 126, and replacing four buses, 374 to 133. All counts are unofficial, based on district tabulations Tuesday night.

The budget for the 2015-16 school year got 358 votes, or 70 percent, in favor and 152 against. It had a wide margin with overall turnout at the lowest it has been in recent years.

Interim Superintendent Joseph Natale said he could not assess the turnout, since this was his first vote in the district. “Hopefully, it’s related to their trust in us,” he said of voters. He surmised it could be complacency or assuredness with the tax cap on levy increases.

Just after the passage was announced, Natale said he was thankful to voters. “We appreciate their support,” he said. “We try to be as open as we can with them.”

The average turnout over the last four years has been 814 voters, but the number has gone below 700 in the last two years, according to District Clerk Denise Robinson. The total on Tuesday night, with all ballots counted, was 512.

It was highest during the four-year period for the 2012-13 budget, when 922 people voted and 58 percent of them were in favor. That was the first year of the state-imposed cap on levy increases and the budget proposal had a 1.95-percent increase to the levy.

In the last two years, the BKW School Board proposed budgets with no increases to the tax levy.

The decrease in voter turnout for school districts matches a decline statewide since the tax cap was first introduced in 2012, according to a release from the New York State School Boards Association; since then, the number of votes has decreased by 20 percent.

The spending plan for next year will raise the tax levy by just 0.51 percent, a decision that prompted scaling back some of the proposals made by Natale, like more staffing in the business office and funding a football program.

The adopted budget also pulled back on some of the spending put in place last year, under Interim Superintendent Lonnie Palmer — including an optional sixth class, curriculum development over the summer, coaching for teachers to adapt the Common Core standards, and grant writing.

“There had to be some tweaking,” Natale said after the polls closed Tuesday, characterizing the budget adjustments after the large shift of resources under Palmer for the 2014-15 budget. He went on to say that moving a teacher’s assistant position to help struggling students to a certified teacher, and making the business official full-time, as opposed to supervising just three days a week, were necessary corrections from the current budget.

Board members Vasilios Lefkaditis and Gerald Larghe voted against that version of the reductions, voting instead to put forward a tax levy with no increase at all. Board President Joan Adriance joined Earl Barcomb and Russell Chauvot to split the tie on the board, with the proposal on the ballot Tuesday approved by the board, 3 to 2.

The tax levy, the money raised by the district from property owners, pays for about 49 percent of the budget at Berne-Knox-Westerlo, while funds from the state makes up 42 percent.

Larghe, the board’s current vice president, did not seek re-election after his first three-year term on the board.

Lillian Sisson-Chrysler, a licensed practical nurse from Westerlo and a lifetime Hilltown resident, got 318 votes on Tuesday, just one more than the number of signatures she said she had on her petition to be a candidate.

“I feel bad for the community because they didn’t have a choice,” Sisson-Chrysler said just before the results were announced. She said she was nervous, hoping the numbers would show support for her, despite hers being the only name on the ballot.

Even though she had no opponent, Sisson-Chrysler put out road signs, wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor, and handed out flyers for her candidacy, she said, because she wanted people to know her.

“I hope we can work as a team,” she said of joining the board, which she will officially do on July 1.