The Saranac Lake Central School District offices and high school are seen in April 2025. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE – The public got a first look at the Saranac Lake Central School District’s $39.7 million budget forecast on Wednesday.

The budget meets the tax cap and includes some staffing reductions through attrition.

The SLCSD Board of Education is set to vote on whether to adopt the budget on April 15. This would send it to a public vote.

The public election and budget vote will be held on May 19 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the high school through door No. 5.

To vote on the budget and board members, one must be registered in the district in a house that is their primary residence. To register to vote, go to tinyurl.com/3zzyvk88.

The budget would have the district spend $39,731,000, $1,631,000 more than last year, a 4.28% increase. It expects to take in the same amount as revenue.

To fund the budget, the district would collect, or levy, $25,766,961 from taxpayers – $189,680 more than last year. Two-thirds of SLCSD’s funding comes from taxpayers.

The tax cap – which limits how much the town can increase its draw from taxpayers from year to year is set at 0.75%.

SLCSD Superintendent Diane Fox said this is the lowest cap she’s ever seen. It is much lower than last year’s 4.44% cap.

This year, the district can only raise the amount it collects in taxes by $191,575 over last year’s budget without exceeding the cap.

The budget could exceed the cap, but would need a 60% public vote to pass instead of a 50% vote. Fox said she is not considering proposing a budget that goes over the tax cap.

Fox called it a “tight” budget, but a “workable” one. She is retiring this summer and wants to leave the next superintendent a budget that won’t make their first year on the job too difficult.

“I could live it,” she said of the budget on Wednesday.

She also called it a “transitional budget,” as the district prepares for a new superintendent and reconfigures its buildings – closing Bloomingdale Elementary, shifting the middle school grades from Petrova Elementary to the high school and having students of all grade levels ride the bus together.

There are two finalists to succeed Fox as superintendent – Lisa Ruud, a current superintendent of schools for a district in Vermont, and SLCSD high school Principal Josh Dann. To read more about them, go to tinyurl.com/3wrmnekz.

Along with the general cost of things going up, the district has a $2 million health insurance cost increase looming over it next year. Salaries are also going up to allow employees to keep up with the rising cost of living. The vast majority of the budget goes toward paying teachers, staff and administrators. Salaries and benefits make up 75% of the budget.

School Business Executive Nikki Sears said rising electricity costs are already straining the current year’s budget. For one building alone, the cost of electricity jumped $8,000 over the course of one month, she said. Districtwide, electricity is set to cost $175,000 more than what was budgeted for by the end of the year.

Electric costs are thousands of dollars a month higher than budgeted for after National Grid’s recent major rate hike. Sears said they’re looking at large fuel expense increases now, too, with the U.S. in a war with Iran.

Fox said they are waiting to “top off” the school buildings’ heating fuel. Usually, they refill the tanks after the winter. With prices so high right now, they are planning to wait and hope the price goes down. Board Chair Mark Farmer worried, though, that in the fall, if prices go up even more, they may wish they had bought fuel in the spring.

Farmer said some portion of school operations will suffer because with rising costs, shrinking enrollment and a strained tax base, something has to give.

The budget cuts five teaching positions and two staff positions through attrition – not rehiring for positions when people retire.

Fox said this should result in a “minimal loss” in programming and that students should not notice a difference. She added, though, that there will likely need to be more cuts next year, and she hopes they can be made as much as possible through attrition.

Sears said she has not calculated the tax rate impact of this budget yet. That calculation is partially based on how much the district gets in state aid, which is determined through the state budget. The state budget deadline is April 1, though it is rarely met. Sears said the tax rate impact will probably be available after the board votes on adopting the budget.

The budget projects that the district will get $10,361,170 in state aid – $366,586 more than last year. But, this is assuming that the state budget in April includes a 2% increase in school foundation aid. The state Senate and Assembly are proposing that in their budgets, but Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Executive Budget only had a 1% increase, which would be $180,000 more than last year.

The district has just shy of $4 million in unallocated fund balance. The budget calls for the district to pull $2,499,482 of that fund to balance next year’s budget. Fox said they anticipate ending this year with around $1 million of last year’s allocated fund balance left over to rollover into the next budget.

She said the district can’t do this forever, but it has to do it now.

The district used $1.5 million to balance the budget this past year. The year before that, the district used $2.35 million.

Board Member Zach Randolph asked if that is typical.

Sears said it is very common.

Fox said the budget is the maximum amount of money a district can spend in a year. They need to have money to add to their savings built into it.

She said the reserves are for emergencies.

“We are in that time right now,” she added.

Many neighboring districts are experiencing financial crises. Fox said she sees them on the news and feels lucky. SLCSD has saved up money over the years to be able to stave off a financial crisis, she said.

Farmer said other districts have kept smaller fund balances and are in crisis mode now.

The district also has several cash reserves, which get filled with unspent funds from previous years.

Sears said they are not intending to draw from any reserves this year, except for the transportation and maintenance reserve, which is used for school bus purchases.

She said they plan to not put money into some reserves because the reserves are healthy. Fox said they are prioritizing where money goes and “pulling back.”

The board will vote to adopt the reserve plan at the next meeting.

If voters reject the proposed budget, the district would fall back to a contingency budget – which essentially does not raise the tax levy any higher than the current year. The contingency budget is based on a formula. Because the tax cap is so low this year, Fox said there are potential situations where the contingency budget could actually be equal or higher than the proposed budget, due to the formula. There are many things the school is mandated to pay for that it cannot cut. There are state regulations, union contracts and legal requirements.

A contingency budget would essentially “unbalance” the budget, and lead to the district to start to make more cuts to “unessential” programming.

Sears said they have not created the contingency budget yet.

Student enrollment in the district is also at record lows for the modern era. Thirty years ago, the district had more than 2,000 students – twice as many as there are today.

Enrollment has been on a steady decline ever since. The district reported 984 students enrolled on opening day this year – 60 fewer than reported on opening day last year.

Last month, the board unanimously voted to close Bloomingdale Elementary School – partially because of declining enrollment and partially as a way to save money.

The district estimated it could save up to $600,000 annually by closing Bloomingdale. This will not lead to a reduction in taxes, but is expected to stave off larger tax increases or budget cuts.

The high school will become a junior-senior high school to accommodate this change, and Petrova Elementary will become a Pre-K-6 school.

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Election

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On May 19, there will also be an election for two open school board seats. Both open board seats carry three-year terms.

Board Clerk Gina Pollock said application packets to run for the board are available now. To get one, email her at pollockgin@slcs.org or stop by her office in the high school through door No. 5. These packets are due back to the clerk by 4 p.m. on April 20.

Board member Mike Martin said he’ll be running for his seat again.

“My work is not done here,” he said.

Martin was appointed in December 2022 to fill a vacant seat. Just a few months later, he earned a full term on the board, running unopposed.

Board member Joe Henderson said he is still thinking about if he will run for a third term on the board. He was last elected alongside Martin in 2023, also unopposed.