In May 2024, voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposed ICSD budget for the upcoming school year. Voters also struck down proposals to buy electric school buses and for the district’s capital projects budget. Following this, the Board of Education developed a new proposal for the budget, significantly reducing the total dollar amount. This budget passed on June 18 with 4,979 YES and 1,736 NO votes.
The rejection of the initial budget proposal by over seventy percent of voters is unusual for the school district as well as the state. According to the NYS School Board Association, only 2.8 percent of NYS school districts’ initial budget proposals this year were rejected. ICSD also faced an unusual turnout of over six thousand voters this year, double that of last year.
One oft-cited reason for the rejection of the initial school budget proposal was the consequent increase in taxes. The first proposed school budget would have seen an 8.42 percent increase in school taxes. Because this increase is well over the statewide limit of 3.1 percent, a supermajority (sixty percent) was required to pass the budget. Property value assessments have risen significantly recently, with homeowners in Tompkins County generally seeing a fifteen to twenty percent increase in their home value. This contributed to the financial burden of the increased taxes.
Some community members who voted against the initial budget also noted frustrations they had with the administration of the district and the allocation of funds. Negative public perception of ICSD Superintendent Luvelle Brown may have also played a role in the budget’s rejection.
The second proposed budget came with a tax levy increase of only 2.8 percent and required only a simple majority to pass, due to the lesser amount of taxes voters would have to pay. If the second budget had not passed, the school district would have been forced to adopt a contingency budget, which would have resulted in no tax levy and very limited spending on the part of ICSD.
The budget cuts within the second proposal have resulted in the loss of the Mandarin and Latin programs, several performing arts classes, and AVID, a college readiness program at IHS. As of the writing of this article, it is unclear which other electives may be cut to achieve the goal of eliminating classes with less than seventeen students. Dr. Brown said that the budget cuts would be akin to a “hiring chill,” meaning that the district would not fill any currently vacant positions or hire any new positions. ICSD also recently announced that they planned to cut all thirty-nine building substitute positions this year. Dr. Brown, commenting on the matter, said that the program would “need to be eliminated” in order to balance the budget before the beginning of the school year. Students may see less funding for sports and athletics, and staff may see increases in class sizes as well as some of their classes being cut. The full effect of the budget cuts on the 2024-25 school year is yet to be seen, but we can expect it to be substantial.
May 28 Board of Education Meeting to discuss budget options. Maddie Vogel/Ithaca Times