BY ANDY GARDNER

North Country This Week

MASSENA -- The ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic has Board of Education members facing uncertainty about 2020-21 school aid.

"We don't know what effect the COVID-19 crisis is going to have on the state budget," Loren Fountaine, the board's Finance Committee chair, said at the Thursday, March 19 school board meeting. "We have no idea what this means. We're kind of shooting in the dark."

He said although there is some concern for this year, the bigger concern is for future years if the worldwide public health crisis sparks a recession.

"I think we're in good shape for this year. I'm more concerned about the later impact of what next year's going to be," Fountaine said.

"All bets are off at this point. We're using the governor's proposal as our baseline and hoping that comes to pass. Because usually it's not a good number for most schools. It's not a great number for us, but it's one we can live with," Superintendent Pat Brady said.

They are tentatively looking at a 1.9% tax levy increase.

"Our tax cap would actually be 3.9%. Nobody wants to be putting that kind of levy out there and we're not going to," Brady said. He noted that in the last four years, they've increased taxes for two of them, and in both cases it was under a 1% hike.

Brady said the proposed $57.1 million 2020-21 budget eliminates some positions through attrition and adds others, mostly due to special education mandates.

"We're not cutting any positions. But we're not adding money for those positions," he said.