City School District tax rate unchanged

By STEPHEN BARTLETT
Staff Writer

March 27, 2008 04:00 am

— PLATTSBURGH -- Plattsburgh City School officials' focus this budget season is maintaining quality schools with taxpayers in mind.
They're tickled to offer a budget proposal with no tax increase, largely due to cost savings and extra money from New York state.
"We feel it is time in the Plattsburgh community to do a zero-percent increase in the tax levy," said Superintendent James "Jake" Short.
He plans to present the 2008-09 spending plan at the School Board meeting at 7:30 tonight at the Duken Building on Broad Street. The board may adopt the proposal afterward.
"For this meeting, I am going to be presenting a final draft of the budget," Short said.
He pointed out that officials are further along in the process than this time last year.
"Our intention is, in doing it now, we will be prepared earlier and be able to get information out to the community and make it more available to people leading up the budget vote."
The 2008-09 budget proposal totals $36,856,096, a 3.4-percent increase over the current spending plan.
The tax levy, or total amount to be raised by taxes, is $17,530,123, which is the same as this year.
School officials estimate the tax rate will not rise either, and it could even decrease some, depending on final assessment figures for the City of Plattsburgh.
Plattsburgh City School District would receive $513,335 in High Tax Aid under the executive-budget proposal.
"If that aid remains, we can do this," Short said. "If that aid strain changes, we would have to go back to the drawing board and make some modifications."
He doesn't expect any surprises.
Other factors keeping the tax levy steady include a decrease in contributions to the Teacher Retirement System, which comes as a relief, given the hefty increases over the last few years.
"Believe it or not, we are also seeing a reduction in utilities through natural gas," Short said.
The bus garage is now being used for cold storage, which reduces heating costs, and less natural gas is being used at Stafford Middle School due to repairs to the boiler system.
"Instead of doing reductions, we have done a number of areas of cost containment," Short said.
School districts continue to see rises in health-insurance costs, and Plattsburgh City School faces a 7-percent hike in premiums.
"We feel we have a responsible budget," Short said, "one that can operate our programs and at the same time be wise to taxpayers' needs."

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