Schuylerville School District Making Cuts

Residents of the Schuylerville area will be voting together on the 15^th of May for a budget proposal, which will cause even more cuts to be made. This means that a string of layoffs will likely follow through, along with the elimination of different school programs, which while negatively impact the students in many ways. The proposed budget will be at about $30.97 million and this is definitely not good news for the area. In fact, the president of the Board of Education, Mike Booth, says that this definitely bad news for Schuylerville and the school district. Reductions have had to be made, even though academic programs will continue to be made.

This is the second year in which the school district has had to make cuts, which includes cuts of staff members as well as programs. Last year, $1.2 million worth of cuts had to be made and because of that, over a dozen positions ended up being cut. This year, it is expected that nearly ten teaching positions will ended up being eliminated, of course, that is generally if the budget ends up being approved. Six of the cuts will be made via layoffs but the others will be made through retirements or those who are choosing to resign. Some other cuts were made as well, which includes non-teaching position, such as supportive staff assistants and teaching aides. Some positions were combined with one another as a way of saving money as well. A number of different positions were cut as the money continues to dry up and there is simply not enough of it to go around and fund the salaries of these different employees. It is definitely an unfortunate thing for the budget to have to be so tight because it puts a lot of people out of work and prevents students from having some of the things they enjoy and need.

Along with the loss of a number of different positions, putting many different people out of work, cuts were also made when it came down to supplies and materials. Many of the different extracurricular programs were negatively impacted by the cuts, as well as different clubs that ended up having to be reduced because of the cuts. Because of the budget, some students are suffering since the money for certain resources simply is not there and is not available. There are several different propositions available within the budget, which includes employees paying a larger portion for their healthcare than they normally would have in order to help with the budget cuts that are taking place. Every little bit helps in some way, especially when it comes to ensuring students still have what they need to get the best education possible.