It’s Official: Hannibal Seals Spending Plan For 2008-09

HANNIBAL, NY – The results are official. Hannibal Central School District’s $25 million budget was approved at the polls Tuesday by 52 votes.

Based on Tuesday’s results, Superintendent Michael DiFabio said that he learned a lesson this year about the importance of telling residents how important it is to get out and vote.

“It was interesting,” DiFabio said. “In May, we had 358 people vote against the budget. Tuesday, we had 355 vote against it. But, in May we had 279 people support the budget. Tuesday we had 407 people support it.

“It seems there were a lot of people out there who didn’t realize how important their vote was last month,” DiFabio added. “Perhaps they thought their vote didn’t matter but obviously we need everybody’s vote.”

Because of the closeness in numbers of those who voted against the budget, DiFabio said it was clear that the district didn’t change the opinion of those who were against the budget.

“But I learned a lesson,” he said. “Next year we will be a little more vocal about what the budget means to Hannibal so people get out and vote the first time.”

Hannibal was the only one of three districts in Oswego County that hosted a second vote this year to see results overturn. Voters in both Oswego City and Altmar-Parish-Williamstown rejected spending plans for the second time Tuesday.

In districts like Fulton and Oswego, results are not official immediately after the vote. DiFabio explained that because Hannibal only has one polling site with two machines, the process to verify the vote count and make the results official is already final and the budget is in place.

He explained that at the close of polls, the clerk and assistant clerk close the machines, do a double tally of the votes and absentees, sign the paperwork, make the announcement and lock the machines. The Hannibal Board of Education does not need to vote on the results, he said.

“We only need the signature of the clerk to make them official,” he said. “I guess sometimes it is nice to have a smaller district.”

DiFabio pointed out that Hannibal is not “out of the woods” and has other hurdles to jump before it knows if all of its budgeted items will be funded.

“We are waiting to see the results of our Title I allocation,” he said. If those funds are cut, he said that the items that would have been funded through that aid source would go back into the general budget.

“If any Title I items go back into the general budget, other items would have to come out,” DiFabio said. “The budget amount is set. We can’t overspend.”

That information is expected sometime next week, he said.

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