VOORHEESVILLE — A week before the state budget is due, the school district here is fine-tuning its budget draft. The school board Monday resolved to adopt three bond proposals for voters to decide on in May.

“We have no state-aid information,” said the district’s business official, Sarita Winchell. “It’s going to be up, not down. We just don’t know how much.”

The projected shortfall in revenues under the tax-levy limit for the $22.8 million budget is a relatively small $71,000, she said last month.

“Nothing has changed in revenues,” Winchell said Monday. The district has a $16,746,414 cap for the amount of money it can raise in taxes. The tax levy amount proposed is up $308,000 from last year, which is an increase in the tax levy of 1.88 percent, Winchell said recently.

In 2011, the state’s property tax cap for municipalities and school districts was signed into law; the school levy limit is based on an eight-step formula.

“We have filed this with the state,” Winchell said. District numbers were due to the state March 1, she said.

Since the first look at the budget earlier this month, Winchell said, the budget has been reduced by almost $300,000, based on lower amounts the district is expected to pay for the teachers’ retirement system and for workers’ compensation.

Also, the loss of the need to pay for tuition for a Board of Cooperative Educational Services special education student with an expected 2015 graduation date reduced the budget by $39,000, and lower rates for health and pharmacy payments decreased the budget by $196,000, she said. Those numbers for health insurance, which dropped since the first estimate three weeks ago, affect the overarching budget from last year to this year by $55,000, she said.

Some expenses are expected to rise, as all salaries combine for a $131,000 increase, she said. BOCES special education and English for new learners requirements are expected to go up by $134,000 and $82,000, respectively, according to the draft budget.

Overall, Winchell said, “We actually have a budget with an increase of only $104,000.”

Winchell counseled the board to plan to use $158,000 of excess revenue over its expenses in order to keep below the state-set tax levy limit. If a budget goes over that limit, it must be passed by a supermajority or 60 percent of the vote; below the limit, the budget passes by a simple majority or 50 percent of the vote.

“I absolutely endorse going to the cap,” she said. Winchell suggested adding items to the budget to address health and safety issues, like a new pedestrian bridge, and to align budget needs with student enrollment, like adding back staff for classes at the elementary school.

Propositions

The board resolved to offer three propositions for May voters: the replacement of two buses, according to a regular schedule of maintenance and replacement that Voorheesville has followed for over a decade; the use of funds to wipe out a $100,000 school-lunch fund deficit; and, the repair of a pedestrian bridge at the elementary school along with some reconstruction and window repair at the school and its bus garage.

The first proposition is to replace two school buses at a combined cost of $230,000.

Winchell said earlier that the district must wipe out its $100,000 school lunch fund deficit using money from the general fund.

The deficit is cumulative over several years, Winchell said, and would not be repeated on a large scale.

The third proposition is the repair or replacement of the footbridge at the elementary school. Repair or replacement will require the removal of the bridge and repair of its abutments, and will trigger a state environmental review, which must be completed before a voter referendum, Winchell said.

Costs for a wooden bridge could be $142,000, while galvanized steel could run up to $162,000, she said. The project may also include rigging, trucking, and abutment repair costs.

Board members on Monday discussed concerns about fluctuating construction estimates for the bridgework.

“Is anyone's fees contingent on the estimate?” school board President Timothy Blow asked.

“Those are not percentages of the project,” Winchell said.

“Is any of this not subject to open bid?” Blow asked.

Winchell said that the architect’s fee is a flat $6,000.

“We will bid every piece of this project,” she said about the remainder.

Board members Diana Straut and Doreen Saia asked about the reliability of and the excess engineering costs included in the estimates.

“No one is saying we don't want this project to happen — we do,” Saia said.

Later, Blow told The Enterprise, “I'm comfortable that everything will be competitively bid.”

Also in the proposition for the bridgework is reconstruction at the bus garage and repair of windows installed in 1948, Winchell said. She said that the windows have been “leaking like a sieve.”

New construction for both the building and the bridge would be eligible for state aid, Winchell said.