A public hearing on the Saranac Lake Central School District budget will be held on Wednesday. To attend, enter through the doors at the far left of the high school seen in this photo. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — On Wednesday, a public hearing on the Saranac Lake Central School District’s $38.1 million proposed budget will be held at 5 p.m.

The SLCSD Board of Education unanimously adopted the budget last month. Now, the budget will go to the public for a final vote on May 20.

The hearing will be held at the high school auditorium, accessed through door No. 5 on the far left side of the school. The meeting will also be livestreamed on YouTube at tinyurl.com/mrtue9s8. Viewers can listen in, but not talk during it.

The budget would levy $25,577,281 in taxes, meet the 4.44% tax levy increase cap, carry some staff layoffs and account for potential federal aid cuts.

To read more about the adopted budget, go to tinyurl.com/52rutcuw.

There will also be two school board seats up for election on the ballot on May 20. The seats are for Chair Mark Farmer and member Zach Randolph’s positions. They are both running for reelection, and are unopposed.

On May 20, the election and budget vote will be held in the auditorium lobby of the high school in door No. 5 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

To learn how to register to vote, contact your county board of elections in Essex, Franklin or Clinton county.

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Elementary staffing

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After Wednesday’s budget hearing, the board will enter its regularly scheduled meeting, where members will also discuss elementary school staffing configuration options.

At a board meeting last week, SLCSD Superintendent Diane Fox said the district needs to adjust staffing levels between grades three, four and five. Students in these grades are split between the district’s two elementary schools — Bloomingdale and Petrova.

Fox said this shift comes because of the reductions in elementary school staff in the proposed budget, which were made in response to declining student enrollment in this age group. Fox said with fewer students, and now fewer teachers, they need to reduce the number of classrooms they run for these grades down to three.

One option would be to move some students in these grade levels from Petrova to Bloomingdale — having two classrooms at Petrova and one at Bloomingdale.

Another option would be to move all Bloomingdale students in grades three, four and five to Petrova — filling the three classrooms currently at Petrova and having none at Bloomingdale.

Board member Nancy Bernstein said there’s a third option to consolidate individual grade levels in the two schools — having two grade levels in one school and one grade level in the other.

Historically, Fox said Bloomingdale Elementary starts with a large kindergarten class, but then the numbers shrink as the grade levels get higher.

“Over the years, more people (with public school students) have moved out of the Bloomingdale area than have moved in,” Fox said.

Petrova is also seeing smaller class sizes.

On Wednesday, Fox said school officials will have data on the student census and the size of incoming kindergarten classes. She said the board should likely make a decision by the end of May to let families know before summer break, so they know what to expect when school returns in the fall.