GUILDERLAND — The school and library budgets as well as school propositions for buses and upgrades all passed by solid margins Tuesday.

“I’m overwhelmed with thanks to our community for the resounding endorsement of our work,” said Superintendent Marie Wiles after the unofficial results, reported here, were announced on Tuesday night to a score of onlookers at Guilderland Elementary School. “I couldn’t be more grateful.”

The $93.7 million budget passed with 71.8 percent — 1,869 ballots — in favor. All five elementary school polling places supported the spending plan, which will bring a 2.76-percent tax-levy increase.

For the first time in recent years, Guilderland was able to add staff since the district, like others across New York, received increased state aid and had lower pension payments. The New York State School Boards Association reported Wednesday that 98.6 percent of school district budgets passed. The average budget passage rate since 1969 is 85 percent; since the state set a tax levy limit in 2012, the average passage rate has been 97 percent.

Seventy percent of Guilderland school district voters favored a $1,125,000 proposition to buy 11 school buses and a plow truck; about half of the costs will be reimbursed by the state.

A $1,160,000 capital improvement project passed with 67.8 percent of the vote. The money will be spent to replace lights on the football field and to upgrade the high school auditorium. “I was surprised by the margin,” said Wiles.

A similar proposition was narrowly defeated in the fall of 2013. “It could be the economy,” Wiles surmised of why the projects were approved this time around. “Or it could be we did a better job explaining the need.”

She concluded, “I’m thrilled.”

In the five-way race for three seats on the school board, incumbent Christine Hayes was the top vote-getter, followed closely by newcomer Seema Rivera. Incumbent Catherine Barber also retained her seat, coming in third.

Asked for her response to the election results, Wiles said, “The candidates who emerged did a lot of work to get their names out there. They have my heartfelt congratulations.”

Library

The $3.6 million library budget passed with 65.8 percent of the vote. Timothy Wiles, the superintendent’s husband, in his second year as director of the library, said, “We’re thrilled because almost the same number of voters as last year came up and the ‘yes’ votes are up 6 percent…We feel like we’ve been able to appeal well to the core voters.”

Prior to 2012, the percentage of voters approving the library budget had typically surpassed that of the school budget but support diminished after a June 2012 vote on a $13 million expansion project that would have updated the library and nearly doubled its size; the plan was defeated, 3 to 1, by about a quarter of Guilderland’s 22,245 registered voters.

On Tuesday, not quite 12 percent of Guilderland voters went to the polls.

Library Trustee Christopher Aldrich, who serves as the board’s president, ran unopposed to keep his seat and garnered 1,653 votes.

The library board has 11 unpaid trustees and no one ran to fill the seat of retiring trustee Brian Hartson.

Write-in ballots were counted on Wednesday morning; 60 different names were written in. Herb Hennings got the most votes, 83; followed by 33 for Carroll Valachovic, a former library trustee; and 19 for Kellen Crawford. Aldrich got three write-in votes and all the others got just one or two votes.

Hennings told The Enterprise on Wednesday that he is eager to serve as a trustee. “I was very disappointed there was such little interest in the library board, only one person filed a petition,” he said.

Hennings, 66, lives in Slingerlands and is retired from his career as a hearing representative for the New York State Insurance Fund. He currently serves on the Guilderland Planning Board.

“I go to the library quite a bit and do a lot of newspaper reading,” he said. Asked about his favorite book, he said, “When a was a young man, I enjoyed ‘Advise and Consent.’” The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, written by Allen Drury in 1959, explores the controversial confirmation of Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell, formerly a member of the Communist Party.

Asked about his goals as a trustee, Hemmings said he was interested in “the future of the library building” and “whether there will be renovations.”

Although there was a real race for the library board last year, in most recent years the elections have been uncontested, often relying on write-in candidates.

“A five-year term is quite a commitment,” said Timothy Wiles, stating that he does not advocate reducing the size of the board. He cited Aldrich’s stance that 11 people are needed to carry on the work of the board’s six committees.

School board elections

Christine Hayes and Seema Rivera hugged each other after the results of the school board elections were announced. The friends are both Guilderland High School graduates, a rarity on the board. All three of the winning candidates supported the budget.

— Christine Hayes came in first with 25.5 percent of the vote, placing first in Guilderland, Lynnwood, Pine Bush, and Westmere, and fourth in Altamont.

“I’m very happy and excited to continue to serve on the school board,” said Hayes, who will begin her second three-year term in July.

Hayes, 33, an attorney for Albany Medical Center, has taught as a substitute and student teacher in Guilderland schools.

She has been a proponent of repurposing empty classroom space to incubate businesses and said during her campaign that closing a school should be a last resort.

While budgeting is “a balancing act,” Hayes said on negotiating contracts, “Our educators are working so hard and tirelessly. Raises are appropriate to show employees how much you value them. It improves morale, which is good for the students.”

— Seema Rivera garnered 24.7 percent of the vote to come in second, tying for first in Altamont, and coming in second in Guilderland, Lynnwood, Pine Bush, and Westmere.

“I’m very excited to serve the school and community,” she said on Election Night. “I’m especially excited to work with Christine.”

Rivera, 36, who has a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the University at Albany, works as a teaching and learning specialist at Schenectady County Community College and is also a lecturer at the University at Albany. She has two daughters, ages 5 and 2, and is the only candidate that has a child in the Guilderland schools.

“Common Core are just standards,” Rivera said during her campaign. “They don’t tell you how to teach to those standards. Curriculum can be created at the district level.”

— Catherine Barber came in third with 21.1 percent of the vote, tying for first in Altamont, and coming in third in Guilderland, Lynnwood, Pine Bush, and Westmere.

Barber, 50, was elected to her fourth term on the board. She works as a lawyer and a musician and is the mother of two Guilderland graduates.

During her current term, she helped lead the board in rejecting a consultant’s recommendations to close an elementary school.

On Common Core standards, Barber said, “The goal is to make sure all students across the state are being held to the same standards.” She also said, “I’m hoping teachers don’t feel constrained to have to teach test stuff. They still should be creative with their teaching.”

— Nicholas Fahrenkopf came in fourth with 15.8 percent of the vote, placing third in Altamont; fourth in Guilderland, Lynnwood, and Pine Bush; and fifth in Westmere.

Fahrenkopf, who lives in Altamont, spoke out at school board meetings after a consultant’s report concluded with scenarios that would have closed Altamont Elementary School. Fahrenkopf, 28, an engineer for the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, questioned the consultant’s methodology and data. He currently serves on a subcommittee task force looking at incubating start-up businesses in the schools.

During the campaign, Fahrenkopf, making his first run for the board, said the district needs to make long-range plans and his ability to analyze data to solve problems could help with that.

— Timothy Burke came in last with 12.9 percent of the vote, finishing fourth in Westmere, and fifth in Altamont, Guilderland, Lynnwood, Pine Bush, and Westmere.

Burke, 45, who has regularly attended school board meetings since 2003 and served for five years on the district’s now-defunct Citizens’ Budget Advisory Committee, made his first run for the board because he believes there is a lack of leadership.

He is the only candidate who did not support the $93.7 million budget, finding the process flawed. “I don’t know what’s in the budget,” he said. “All I see is what they’re going to cut.”

Zip line

As school leaders waited for the votes to be tallied Tuesday night, Superintendent Wiles showed pictures on her phone of a team-building exercise that ended last Friday with administrators plunging from a pole, attached to a zip line.

“We started with low ropes,” said Wiles, gesturing with her hands at knee height. “Then it went up several feet. In March, we were up to the ceiling.”

“It’s hard enough to get administrators in a room not wearing suits; it’s out of your comfort zone,” chimed in Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Lin Severance.

She went on about the program, “You have to learn to trust one another…You’re used to running things on your own….These are activities you can’t do without people supporting you. It makes an even playing field for everyone.”

“I would have a panic attack,” said board member Colleen O’Connell of jumping from a pole.

“We didn’t think we could do it, either,” said Severance. “When you’ve got 30 friends cheering you on, you do it.”

She described Regan Johnson, the district’s athletic director who helped run the program: “Regan is at the top, saying, ‘Take my hand. Just take my hand.’ Your heart is beating right out of your chest.”

“I hugged the pole,” conceded Wiles. “But you have to jump.”

“It’s made a difference all year long,” Severance concluded of the program. “It’s astounding how gentle and kind and supportive everyone is. It shouldn’t be astounding, but it is.”