BY MATT LINDSEY

North Country This Week

CANTON – Canton Central will present taxpayers with a tax levy increase of 2.88 percent toward its $31,640,149 million budget for the 2019-20 school year.

The tax levy will raise $279,130 while the district plans to use over $2 million from its fund balance and $400,000 from reserves to balance the budget.

CCS will receive $12,340,924 in Foundation Aid, which is an increase of $276,983 from this current school year, according to CCS Superintendent Ronald Burke. This is a 2.29% increase.

The total aid, which includes expense driven aids, such as BOCES aid and transportation aid, will total $18,752,914 which is an increase of $244,476 for a total increase of 1.32%, he said.

The proposed budget is $31,640,149. This is an increase of $695,118 which represents a 2.20% increase, CCS said.

Burke said the estimated tax rate for 2019-20 is $22.48 per $1,000 of assessment. 

“This estimate is 2.88% above last years rate of $21.85,: he said. “The tax rate varies depending on assessed property values within each town and is a very difficult to predict prior to final valuation.

In developing this year's budget, CCS officials have reviewed the prior three year's budgets, Burke said. 

“As this is my first year with the Canton budget, it has provided me with a greater understanding of our true costs for nearly every line item. With this information, we have been able to develop a budget that is closely aligned with known costs. However, there are line items in the budget which cannot be cut close to prior year's expenses,” Burke said.

“For example, we know our current costs of special education. However, we need to be financially prepared to provide the necessary services for any student who may move into the district or for a student who presents with different needs over the course of the academic year,” he said.

Likewise, he said the district needs to place additional funds in its equipment line. 

“This year, we have experienced breakdowns of the pool pump, the high school cafeteria dishwasher and a fuel tank pump at the bus garage. As with our home budgets, we need to remain prepared for the unexpected,” Burke said.

Burke added the CCS budgets more than its known expenses for health insurance. “This is done as life circumstances such as marriages and children require us to provide different coverages,” he said 

The largest areas of increased expenses are pupil services and employee benefits. 

These expenses include an additional special education teacher, in order to meet state standards; as well as contractual requirements and changes in benefit costs, outside of our control, he said.

CCS has included funding to continues it student resource officer position. The job is full-time.

“In order to comply with the regulations regarding special education student to teacher ratios, we are adding one additional special education teacher,” Burke said.  

To address the growing needs of its students, Canton Central is also funding the addition of a school psychologist intern. The internship is a required one-year program of study for students enrolled in a graduate program prior to obtaining a license to practice as a school psychologist. 

“The shortage of school psychologists across the state has prompted a number of districts to offer paid internships,” Burke said. “We have negotiated with our bargaining unit to compensate the intern at one-half the salary for a fully licensed school psychologist.”

The district does not anticipate losing and staff of programming.

“At Canton, we are facing an ever expanding gap between anticipated expenses and anticipated revenue,” Burke said. 

To limit the financial impact on the local taxpayer while maintaining a sound educational program, Burke says the CCS is taking steps to increase our revenue stream through such steps as by renting underutilized areas to BOCES for an anticipated revenue of more than $50,000, moving reserve funds to different secured accounts to generate an anticipated increase in interest earnings of at least $100,000, and increasing efforts to purchase materials, supplies and equipment through BOCES when the expense is aid-eligible

“We will also continue to carefully examine our costs to determine where there are opportunities to decrease the expense column of our budget,” he said.

Within the budget, CCS is again including a $100,000 line item for a capital outlay project. The State Education Department allows this annual capital project to address smaller needs for school facilities while receiving building aid, for which Canton, is approximately 88%.

For 2019-20, this $100,000 will be used to replace some of the original windows in the middle school and to continue the process of removing floor tile that contains asbestos.