A look at 2025-26 Grand Island Central School District budget

By Alice E. Gerard

Senior Contributing Writer

The vote on the Grand Island Central School District’s proposed 2025-26 budget, as well as an election of two trustees, is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, May 20.

This article summarizes what is in the budget, as well as the proposed tax levy, and what could happen if the voters reject the budget.

The recommended proposed budget for 2025-26 school year is $79,321,145. This is made up of $7,154,484, or 9%, for administration; $57,354,934, or 72%, for programs; and $14,811,727, or 19%, for capital.

There are projected to be 2,757 students in the Grand Island Central School District, and a total of 550 employees.

The budget is proposition one in the upcoming vote.

Where does the money come from?

Local property tax levy: If the voters approve the budget, the Grand Island Central School District would receive $41,846,515 from its property tax levy. From last year to this year, that is an increase of $1,272,928, which ends up being 3.14%.

State aid: According to Bob Merkle, assistant superintendent for school business and finance, “The state budget was very late again this year. We are anticipating a slight drop in enrollment, but overall, we are forecasting a small increase in state aid. As of today (May 1), we still do not have the final projections for what we will receive here at the Grand Island Central School District.

“State aid comprises about a third of our budget, but all our costs continue to go up rapidly. Without minimal additions to state aid, it’s creating a lot of challenges to school districts again this year.”

State aid: The largest chunk of state aid is foundation aid, which is expected to be $15,879,651. This represents a change of $360,727, or 2.3%.

New York state projects total state aid to be $26,967,267. Last year, projected state aid was $26,523,267. This represents an increase of $440,000. That is largely due to the BOCES aid increase of $103,103, and an increase in foundation aid of $360,727. There are also changes in excess cost aid in two categories: high-cost excess cost decreased by $143,769, and private excess cost aid increased by $60,653.

“Excess cost is for students who have unique education needs, and those supplement the funds needed to provide those students with the services that they need,” Merkle explained.

Universal pre-kindergarten (UPK): The school district has a total of 185 full-day slots to fill. UPK classrooms will be offered in Sidway Elementary School, as well as by approved providers contracting with the school district: St. Timothy Lutheran Child Care and St. Stephen School. The amount of aid for UPK is expected to be $991,023, which is the same as last year’s allotment.

Why 3.14% increase in the property tax levy, when the tax cap is 2%?

Merkle said, “The tax cap formula is a 12-part formula. There are 12 areas in which information has to be provided to help you calculate the end result of what you are allowed to levy or what you can propose to levy and still be within the tax cap guidelines. I think the biggest thing to make sure that voters understand is, though it has been called a 2% tax cap, the 2% number is one part of the 12-part formula; that does not mean the levy will only increase by 2%. The 3.14% request is within the school district’s allowable levy limit.”

Actual tax levy:

The estimated tax rate per thousand is $18.28. For a $185,000 home, with a basic STAR assessment reduction, the increase over last year's tax is $90.07. The estimated basic STAR exemption savings is $426.

Much of the budget is “rollover.” This would include:

√ Academic programs provided to students, as well as athletics and extracurricular programs

√ Salaries for all staff, including substitute teachers and building-based subs.

√ ERS (employee retirement system) and TRS (Teacher retirement system) payments

√ FICA payments

√ Debt service

√ Utility payments for all buildings owned by the school district

Changes in the proposed budget: The following were added to the 2025-26 budget:

√ High school breakfast monitors, at a cost of $39,645.

√ Seal of biliteracy coordinator, at a cost of $1,013.40.

√ Coordinator of postsecondary planning and counseling, at a cost of $1,850.

√ Grand Island High School game club adviser, at a cost of $1,013.40.

√ National Academy Foundation coordinator (out of regular schedule) at a cost of $1,013.40.

√ Grand Island High School Academy of Technology coordinator, for a total of $1,013.40.

√ Grand Island High School manufacturing club adviser, for a total of $1,013.40.

√ Grand Island High School world language club adviser, for a total of $1,013.40.

√ A full-time math academic intervention services instructor to replace the current teacher assistant position at Sidway Elementary School, for a total of $22,000.

√ A lunch monitor at Huth Road Elementary School, for a total of $15,000.

√ A teacher on special assignment (behavior management), for a total of $91,322. This is a districtwide position.

√ An English as a new language teacher (full time), for a total of $91,322. This is a districtwide position.

√ Viking Voyage summer camp, for a total of $9,736. This is a districtwide position.

√ Equipment increases, for $100,000. This covers all schools.

The total amount for all of these changes is $376,955.40.

Discussion of the proposed changes in the budget:

“We are adding a behavior specialist,” Merkle said. “We currently have one behavior specialist, but his caseload is about 80 students. So, we identified that as a need throughout our budget process.”

Similar to the capital project process, he began conversations in November/December with “principals and department heads to see what their needs are in their buildings and departments for next year’s budget. This was a glaring need for us.

“We are also looking to add an English as a new language teacher for some of our language learners. We’ve had an uptick in English as a new language students these last several years. This has been something we’ve been looking at for a few years now. Now seems like the right time to do it.

“There are also some equipment additions. Our desks and other items are starting to show a lot of wear and tear. Some of them are original to the buildings. We built in some extra money for the buildings to start to be able to replace those items to make sure the children are safe and comfortable in their learning environment.

“We also added some clubs at the high school. We are looking to add some breakfast and lunch monitors so we can increase the number of students that are able to access our breakfast program. So far, we’ve received very limited details on what survived in the state budget. One thing that was shared: It does seem that they are going to do the free meals for all students in New York state, both breakfast and lunch.

“Over the last couple of years, our food service director, Pat Smith, has done a great job in using a new program called the community eligibility program (CEP), and has been able to get free meals for students at several of our schools, but not all of our schools have been eligible at this point. Most of our schools are currently doing that, but this will now bring more equity, and this will have all of our schools being able to provide free breakfast and free lunch for our students.

“New York state has added a couple of seals that students can get on their diplomas over the last few years. There’s a seal of biliteracy, a seal of civic readiness. There’s also a CDOS credential (certificate of readiness for entry level employment and career development and occupational studies). I don’t know if they’ve made that into a seal yet or not. They’ve added several of these add-ons that students can earn for their diplomas. We’ve had several students interested in this. We added the seal of civic readiness coordinator last year. We felt that it was appropriate this year to add the seal of biliteracy coordinator, as well.

“As New York state is looking to change its graduation requirements for the next several years, we envision more of this coming down. We’re trying to stay on the forefront of this and make sure we’re providing our students with the greatest opportunities possible.”

What happens if the budget is voted down?

“If the budget does not pass, school districts have two options,” Merkle said. “You can go out for a second vote, or you go with a contingent budget.”

A contingent budget, according to state law, imposes a tax levy increase of 0%.

“To go with a contingent budget, we have to remove $1,272,928. That is a hefty amount,” Merkle said. “There is no way to remove that much without impacting students’ academic and extracurricular programs. If we have to remove $1,272,928 out of the budget, every child is losing almost $462 of a component of their education.”

Proposition 2 is a request for the purchase of vehicles.

The requests are:

√ One 65-passenger bus, at a cost of $174,850.

√ Two 35-passenger buses, at a cost of $114,715 each.

√ Two Ford F350 4x4 – B&G vehicles at a cost of $54,841 each.

The purpose of the vehicle purchases is to maintain current transportation services.

“Originally, we had that proposition a bit higher,” Merkle explained. “We look at a 10-year replacement cycle for our buses. We have approximately 45-50 buses. We have 42 runs, but we’ve, unfortunately, struggled with getting new bus drivers. We’ve had some retirements, and we’ve had some resignations. We haven’t been able to refill some of those positions. Unfortunately, we’ve had to contract some of our runs out.

“We anticipate a few more retirements this year, and we don’t really have anybody in training right now that we feel would be able to backfill that. So, what we did was, with the need to increase the costs for contractual busing (the ones we contract out), we decided to purchase fewer buses this year, to try to help offset those costs because we don’t want buses sitting idle, especially when we’re paying a ton of money for an outside company to run. They use their own buses, not our buses.”