BERNE — In a district where incumbents are rarely defeated, Edward Ackroyd, currently vice president of the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board, was not re-elected for another three-year term.

He said this week he didn’t know why.

At BKW, board members rotate into vice president and president roles.

Ackroyd had backed the $19.3 million 2007-08 budget, and would have moved to a contingency budget had it been voted down last week. Ackroyd, the first elected to a three-year term, favored serving a longer five-year term. He ran for the school board unopposed in 2004 after Lynn Countryman stepped down.

Ackroyd grew up in East Berne and owns Thor Power Supply, which he formed in 1985.
"I think the next two years are going to be interesting," said Ackroyd this week. "I think they’ll do a fine job," he said of the new school board.
Asked if he had any idea why voters hadn’t re-elected him, Ackroyd said, "No, not really."
"I think the candidates ran a strong campaign," he said. A retired BKW teacher and former school board member, Helen Lounsbury, and PTA president Michelle Fusco, won in a four-way race.

In 2004, Ackroyd had riled some in the Berne community by suing the Berne Fire District over lack of absentee ballots. The judge ruled to allow the settlement, which had been reached in his chambers before the case was presented in open court. And, he authorized the commissioners to move the date of the elections. He also waived a legal requirement to release the new absentee ballots at least 60 days before then elections.

This year, Ackroyd sued the town of Knox because he was unable to obtain an updated version of the zoning regulations. The suit was withdrawn, as Knox provided Ackroyd with updates to the town’s zoning ordinance.
Ackroyd said he is proudest of working with the administration to keep the district’s taxes lower than in past years. In the last two years, he said, the tax increases have been low. "I’m concerned that they stay that way," he said.

This year’s tax-levy increase was 2.4 percent; in 2007-08, the tax-levy will increase 3.99 percent. Next year’s budget, passed last week, shows a 4.1-percent increase over this year’s spending plan.

This fall, voters will consider a building project to make the high school accessible to those with handicaps. Also, teachers’ contracts will be renegotiated.
"I hope the board coming in watches them closely," Ackroyd said of the upcoming project and contracts, adding that the cost to the taxpayers needs to stay down.

Paper ballots

Late last Tuesday on election day, administrators, school board members, and candidates waited nearly three hours for election results.

Around mid-morning, because of a glitch in the system, voters changed from using older lever voting machines to a paper ballot.
Nothing on the voting machines had malfunctioned, said Superintendent Steven Schrade. The machines had been "set up erroneously"; they had been mechanically set to allow voters to select just one board candidate instead of two, he said. "That was the whole crux of the problem," he said.
BKW administrators consulted attorney Robert Schofield with Whiteman, Osterman, and Hanna in Albany, who recommended not using the machines and using paper ballots, Schrade said. Much confusion and too many questions would have resulted had the machines been reprogrammed, Schrade said, adding that Schofield recommended a paper ballot because it would give "a more valid vote."

Poll workers appointed by the school board, as well as election and public budget hearing chair Alan Zuk and district Clerk Denise Martin, counted the paper ballots shortly after the polls closed at 9 p.m. There was a total of 872 votes, nearly 200 fewer than last year’s election.

At this time, BKW will continue to use the older, traditional lever voting machines, the same as towns use, Schrade said. BKW does not have its own machines and borrows them from towns, said Martin.
"We take our direction from the Board of Elections, and we’ve heard nothing from them at this point, nor have any other districts that I’m aware of," said Schrade, adding that the exception is Troy, which used new electronic voting machines in last week’s election.