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TST BOCES presents budget to Ithaca board; district spends about $22.2 million annually on BOCES services
Summary
Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga (TST) BOCES officials presented their program and administrative budgets to the Ithaca board, reviewed resident-weighted average daily attendance (RWADA) and program changes, and said Ithaca’s current contract spending is about $22.2 million per year; the administrative budget vote is scheduled for late April.
Officials from Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga (TST) BOCES presented the regional organization’s program and administrative budget to the Ithaca City School District Board of Education during the meeting and answered board members’ questions about aid formulas, program enrollment and reserve accounts.
Lily Talcott, district superintendent for TST BOCES, described how New York State computes resident-weighted average daily attendance (RWADA) and said Ithaca represents about 43% of the BOCES RWADA for the three-county region. Talcott said Ithaca receives approximately 43.5 cents back for every dollar spent on aidable BOCES services.
Talcott and a colleague said the current contract amount for Ithaca is about $22,200,000 per year for BOCES services. Program-by-program changes were described: career and technical education (CTE) costs rose about 6.67 percent because enrollment and supply costs increased; exceptional (special) education and some itinerant services fluctuated with student needs and contracts. Talcott and her colleague said initial service requests form the basis of the draft program budget and that districts often revise requests later in the process.
Dave (presenter) outlined administrative budget drivers including salary and fringe increases driven by contractual obligations, health insurance projected increases (budgeted at roughly 8.24 percent), and reserve accounts used to smooth large capital or equipment purchases for CTE programs. He said BOCES budgets typically include rent for certain educational services and adult education spaces and noted that BOCES cannot hold an unappropriated fund balance: year-end surpluses are returned to component districts in the following November.
Talcott and Dave described different billing methodologies across BOCES services: tuition per student for CTE and special education slots, percentage-of-WADA for administrative allocations, and usage charges for services such as printing or garbage pickup. They also described how some services generate state aid while others do not.
Board members asked for further documentation; presenters said they would provide the “guide to services” and noted the administrative budget will be voted on by component districts between April 16 and April 30 (TST BOCES staff said they expect the ICSD vote to take place on April 29). The presentation concluded without a board vote; board members thanked the presenters and said they found the information useful for local budget planning.
