by Nicole Reome | May 21, 2008 6:34 am
FULTON, NY – Residents in the Fulton City School District weighed in in favor of the proposed 2008-09 spending plan and bus proposition at the polls Tuesday.
At this time, however, it appears voters may have rejected Fulton Public Library’s request for an additional $50,000 in operating funds for the coming year.
Superintendent Bill Lynch explained that the $57,238,244 budget passed with 612 votes in favor and 547 votes opposed.
A proposition that will allow the district to purchase a 17-passenger handicap-accessible bus for its transportation fleet was approved with 586 voters in favor and 491 votes opposed. The district will receive a 90 percent reimbursement from the state for the purchase, meaning that the bus will cost the district $6,700 over the five-year repayment period.
Lynch noted that the proposition request to increase the library’s funding from $40,000 to $90,000 is on the fence until the recount today.
“The library vote is close but it is down by one vote,” Lynch said. “But there are six challenge votes out.”
Lynch said the library vote came in with 543 votes in favor of the library funding and 544 opposed. Challenge votes, he explained, are votes that came in but the voter names were not in the rolls.
“We have to verify that the people are registered voters in the district before we can count those votes,” he said.
If the six votes are included in the total, Lynch said the challenge votes could affect the outcome.
In the Fulton Board of Education election, voters supported one new and two incumbent candidates for the three available seats on the board. The voter totals for the five candidates gave:
Pawlewicz, Ireland and Howard will be sworn in for new three-year terms in July.
“Overall, it appears we had more residents who participated in the vote this year,” Lynch said.
In 2006, 1,036 voters came to the polls. In 2007, that number dipped to 1,021. This year’s vote saw 1,159 votes. For the past five years, however, approximately 10 percent of more than 11,000 eligible voters have come to the polls to vote on the district‘s budget.
“We are pleased that our budget passed but we recognize that it continues to pass by a narrow margin,” Lynch said. “The vote is reflective of the reach challenges that the community faces.”
Lynch noted while the budget passed by a narrow margin, it is comparable to the margin that the district has seen for a couple of years.
“We are also glad to be able to purchase the new bus,” Lynch added, pointing out that the new bus will replace an aging bus in the district‘s fleet. “That will help us keep a fleet that is running in good order to provide safe transportation for our students.”
Lynch also congratulated the three candidates who secured positions on the board of education.
“We also thank Dave Carvey and Pete Tambroni for running,” Lynch said. “Everyone received a substantial amount of votes. It was nice that we had enough candidates to give the community choices in their candidates. It gave us a good race for our board seats.”
Lynch noted that the recount will start this morning to see if the library vote changes. Results should be available later today, he said.
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