GUILDERLAND — Saying it was the first time as Guilderland’s superintendent she could propose a budget without cuts, Marie Wiles on Thursday outlined a $95 million spending plan for next year that stays just under the 0.12-percent tax cap. The plan maintains current programs and staff with a few additions, for an overall increase in spending of 1.42 percent.

Of the added programs and services, Wiles said, “It’s a slim list,” mostly because of new requirements.

Following the priorities set by the 370 people who completed surveys out of roughly 30,000 district residents, Wiles drafted a plan that maintains the status quo and stays under the levy limit, requiring just a simple majority, rather than a supermajority, to pass during the public vote on May 17.

“We’re very close — $9,000 — to the threshold,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders. The tax-levy increase is estimated at 1.35 percent.

State aid is expected to cover about $25 million, just over a quarter of the revenues, and property taxes would make up most of the rest at about $69 million. The plan uses $470,000 from the fund balance, or rainy-day account, which the district had built up this year after two years of being labeled susceptible to fiscal stress by the state comptroller.

This week, Moody’s Investors Service announced it assigned an A1 rating for the school district, which is refunding $11.325 million in serial bonds.  Concurrently, Moody’s affirmed the A1 rating on Guilderland’s $32.2 million of outstanding general obligation debt.

“The A1 rating incorporates the district’s satisfactory reserves that have begun to stabilize, sizeable tax base with above average wealth levels and moderate debt burden mitigated by state building aid reimbursement,” said the notice from Moody’s.

The school board and the public had a chance to ask questions about the superintendent’s budget proposal at the board’s meeting on March 8. The district will also hold a “community conversation” on March 22 to discuss budget priorities.

Wiles said yesterday that most of Tuesday’s meeting was spent talking about the plan to fill a retiring social worker post with a school counselor, based on pending changes in the state education commissioner’s regulations. Lisa Knowles, Guilderland’s director for Pupil Personnel Services, gave a presentation on support roles in the school, which, said Wiles, “overlap tremendously.”

“The work of the budget is really a balancing act,” Wiles told the board as she presented her budget last Thursday, balancing “what we are here for” with “the resources we have.”

Building the budget meant confronting key questions, she said in an hour-and-a-half long presentation: “What do we care about?” and “What can we sustain over time?...It’s not just about today or tomorrow. It’s for the long view.”

The spending plan does realize savings from lower enrollment with fewer elementary classroom sections, leading to a reduction of five-and-six-tenths posts at the elementary level. Overall, the district is expected to continue its slow decline in enrollment, with 32 fewer students next year. Currently the district has 4,862 students and employs 902 staffers.

Savings were realized, too, from reduced fuel costs, less debt, and reduced pension contributions due to a robust stock exchange in recent years.

On the other hand, health-insurance costs continue to increase.

The governor’s plan would restore $630,000 in Gap Elimination Adjustment funds to Guilderland but would decrease Building Aid by $578,000.

“A rollover budget,” said Sanders — a spending plan that would keep the same programs and services as this year — would cost $1.7 million more than the current $93.7 million plan. The gap is $124,125.

With five recent years of large budget gaps, Guilderland cut over 200 staff members.

State law requires that the tax levy be capped at 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. Because the Consumer Price Index this year is near zero, so, too, is the levy limit — at 0.12 percent. Guilderland can increase its levy slightly more than that because of new construction in the district, which increases the tax base.

The current levy for Guilderland is $68.6 million and $69.6 million is allowed for next year. If it weren’t for the new construction, the school district could only increase its levy by $80,000. A 2-percent increase would have given Guilderland an additional $1.3 million to spend, said Sanders.

The biggest expense — 77.9 percent — is for salary and benefits, which is typical of schools. “It takes a lot of people to educate children...it’s a labor-intensive industry,” said Sanders. Professional salaries will be up next year to $38.7 million from $37.4 million this year.

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Wiles went over some of the new or soon-to-be regulations with which the district will have to comply. Guilderland has a growing number of students who come from other countries. The state is requiring that English as a new language (ENL) be taught with teachers in classrooms rather than having students pulled out. “To fully comply, we’d need to add six new ENL teachers,” said Wiles.

A change not yet approved by the Board of Regents but expected soon is to have a counselor available to students in all grades. “We don’t have any school counselors at the elementary level currently,” said Wiles.

Guilderland is making efforts to enhance inclusive practices in keeping with federal and state expectations, said Wiles, listing several local initiatives: Teachers are being trained by expert Julie Causton, special-needs students are included in general-education classrooms at Farnsworth Middle School, a co-teaching model at Westmere Elementary School is being expanded, self-contained classrooms at Lynnwood Elementary School are gradually being eliminated, and co-teaching will be taking place for ninth-graders at the high school.

“It’s not without challenge,” said Wiles. “I don’t want to sugarcoat anything.”

Wiles went over the proposed additions by grade level. At the elementary schools, for $6,185, staff would be hired for two hours a day to help with the security systems; a retiring social worker would be replaced with a school counselor at no cost; five teaching assistants would be added for $160,500; and, for $62,400, eight-tenths of a post would be added for special education at Altamont Elementary School.

At Farnsworth Middle School, for $26,000, four-tenths of a post would be added to reduce class size for special classes like art, health, technology, and physical education; for $78,000, an ENL teacher would be added; $4,400 would be spent for safety and security for two hours on each school day.

At the high school, for $109,200, one-and-four-tenths post of an ENL teacher would be added; and, for $156,000, two special education teachers would be added to co-teach ninth-grade classes “to disperse students with disabilities,” said Wiles.

The total number of added staff is five-and-three-tenths posts. The budget also includes five unassigned teachers, to handle classes that would exceed guidelines when the number of sections is cut.

“That’s as far as we got with the numbers Neil gave us,” said Wiles. “We are not done with the budget,” she hastened to add. “There are many unknowns.”

Wish list

In case Guilderland were to get more money in state aid than the governor has proposed, Wiles said, “We would like to plant the seeds...pick a handful of things that are pressing.”

Among the possibilities she listed were more reading support, eight-tenths of a post, at Guilderland and Altamont elementary schools; a counselor for Guilderland and Westmere, the largest of the five elementary schools with growing numbers of students from other countries; and four-tenths of a coordinator for reading recovery.

At Farnsworth, a special-education teacher and summer-school busing. And at the high school, four-tenths of a post to oversee job-site learning; a school psychologist, a math teacher, and two-tenths of a math teacher as part of launching a STEM Academy to focus on science, technology, engineering, and math.

The total cost for the wish list would be $348,015.

Wiles said yesterday of the March 8 board meeting, “The big discussion is what else to put in.”

Suggestions from the board included more teaching assistants, as Guilderland has cut back drastically in recent years; more counseling; and having students start school on Sept. 6.

Board member Christopher McManus said at an earlier meeting that he spoke for families with two parents who work when he said finding child care for Sept. 6 would be onerous since summer programs will be over.

The extra day would cost about $35,000 to pay for bus drivers and other staff, Wiles said, noting there was some talk of taking the money from the district’s fund balance rather than subtracting a budget item.

“Stay tuned,” she concluded, noting there will be a “community conversation” on March 22, with the public invited to speak at 6 p.m., an hour before the regular board meeting starts.

This article was updated on March 10, 2016 to match the print version, which included information on the new Moody's rating and on the March 8 Guilderland School Board budget discussion.