OSWEGO – The Oswego City School District Board of Education met last night, May 4, via Zoom to discuss the budget for the 2021-22 academic year.
The proposed budget for next school year is set to increase by 2.999% to $91,159,811. Despite the overall increase of $2,654,356, property taxes in Oswego are not projected to change from the current rate of 17.91%, and the budget does not anticipate any cuts from current departments.
“It has no budget cuts in it,” Superintendent Dr. Mathis Calvin III said. “It has a 0% tax increase for our tax payers.”
Calvin went on to say that the budget is “tax cap compliant.” These numbers adequately reflect the budget’s goals of being fiscally sound but also flexible.
“Our goal was to develop a budget that was fiscally sound, meaning that it would not be excessive for our tax payers, that it would be flexible,” Calvin said. “Foolproof, that it would provide for emergencies should they occur and … Flowing, wanting to make sure we had enough cash flow should state aid be withheld.”
Beyond those goals, more specifically, the budget is broken down into three components: administrative, capital and program.
The administrative budget saw a 2.5% increase to $8,490,321, the capital budget saw a 0.2% increase to $12,038,728 and the program budget saw a 3.5% increase to $70,630,762. All three components are quite important to the school district and its goals to support the students.
“The administrative budget [includes] office and administrative expenses, including salary and benefits and consulting costs that are not directly related to student services and programming,” Calvin said. “The second component is the capital component which includes all transportation debt, financing, debt service for construction of facilities and operational costs. The third component is of course the programming which is the largest component of the budget. It includes all expenses directly related to student learning.”
One somewhat controversial account that was questioned by Heather DelConte, the president of the Board of Education, was proposition two of the budget, the purchase of transportation vehicles. The budget proposed the purchase of two 30-passenger Bluebird Microbus gas buses, two 65-passenger Bluebird Vision gas school buses, three 64-passenger Cummins/Diesel Thomas C2 buses and three 64-passenger Detroit/Diesel Thomas C2 buses at an estimated cost that would not exceed $1,125,000.
The issue in question was not the amount of money, but rather the phrasing of the proposition which reads, “the issuance of obligations of the District in a principal amount that may exceed the District’s constitutional debt limit.”
“I am racking my brain and I don’t remember hearing that the bus purchases were going to put us over our constitutional lending limit,” DelConte said. “As a voter and a taxpayer, I find it kind of alarming and irresponsible just that kind of language.”
DelConte asked Nancy Squairs, the executive director of business and finance for the Oswego Central School District, if she expects the purchase to put the district over the debt limit.
Squairs said that she would have to check with the bond council. She went on to add that the main reason for this verbiage is due to the capital project financing that was established two years ago and that the district’s debt ratio is combined with Oswego City and the reason why it “has a problematic debt ceiling.” Calvin added that the district wants to be “as responsible as we can be” in terms of staying below that debt limit.
Jim McKenzie, a Board of Education member, mentioned that the number was merely the maximum the district would spend.
“If we [found ourselves] against a ceiling that we are not comfortable with, we could reduce the number of buses we bought just to make sure we are comfortable with … And flexibility is still an option,” McKenzie said.
There will be four different places where Oswego City School District members can vote for the budget on May 18 from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. These places include Scriba Fire Station for Ward 10, St. Paul’s Church, for Wards two, four and six, Elim Grace Church for wards one, three, five and seven as well as Oswego Town Hall for wards eight and nine.
A separate article on other topics discussed during last night’s meeting can be found here.
Agenda items and documents from the meeting can be found here. The full meeting can be viewed in the video provided above.
