Increase in state aid helps Sweet Home budget picture
GEOFFREY M. HICKS Superintendent Sweet Home Schools
Each April, the Sweet Home School Board adopts the proposed budget for the next school year, which is voted on by the community one month later.

School budget adoption is one of the most demanding jobs a board faces. The choices are difficult, and in the end it boils down to maintaining a balance between protecting the core programs of a school district and respecting the impact of local property tax increases on the community. The balance is a delicate one, requiring the board and administration to see the big picture, to have a vision for the future and to keep priorities straight.

The Sweet Home Board of Education has spent many hours analyzing reports, asking questions about efficiency and listening to short-term and long-term financial scenarios.

After much deliberation and debate, the board approved a budget increase of $3.3 million, which translates to a 5.83 percent increase over the current year's spending. The most significant factor affecting the budget-to-budget increase in Sweet Home was the increase in debt as a result of the middle school building project. The increased capital expense in the 2007-08 budget accounts for more than 40 percent of the overall increase in spending. The district will receive state building aid to offset much of that expense.

This year, there was good news in the budget creation process. Our local state legislators, Sen. Mary Lou Rath, Assemblyman Jim Hayes and Assemblyman Robin Schimminger, helped to pass an on-time state budget that allocates a significant state aid increase to Sweet Home and provides property tax rebates that will reduce the overall tax burden on our community.

The tax rebate checks should be between $240 and $275 for the average home in the district, guaranteeing that taxes will be lower in 2007-08. I'd like to use this space to publicly thank our state legislators for their continued and unwavering support of funding for schools.

There are two basic means for using the extra state aid: applying it to fund new or existing programs or using it to decrease the tax levy. Sweet Home plans on doing both things.

We want to expand our prekindergarten program, improve academic intervention services and work to hire a school resource officer for the high school.

The board also decided to apply a large sum of state aid to reducing the tax levy, which will increase approximately 1.8 percent over the current year.

The tax levy increase translates to an additional $19 on the school tax bill for the average home in the district, maintaining Sweet Home's status as the lowest full-value tax rate for Erie County homeowners.

Sweet Home's budget vote will move to the Norman Vergils Community Center at the high school this year because of construction at the middle school.

In addition to the budget, there will be propositions on buses, an Excel aid capital project and three seats for the Board of Education.