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Cornwall Central School District budget would add lockdown system, extra staff and 20 UPK seats; levy up 2.75%
Summary
The Cornwall Central School District is asking voters to approve a budget that preserves current programs across five schools, funds a districtwide lockdown system, adds a safety monitor and an early-intervention teacher, and expands universal pre-K by 20 seats with a proposed 2.75% tax-levy increase on the May 20 ballot.
Bridal Carty, a member of the Cornwall Board of Education, said the Cornwall Central School District is asking voters to approve a proposed budget that preserves programs at all five district schools, funds new safety measures, and increases the tax levy by 2.75%.
Carty said the proposed budget "would fund a new lockdown system that would allow administrators to secure all doors and activate emergency strobe lights in each of our 5 schools in the event of an incident, all with the push of a button," and would add an additional safety monitor at Willow Avenue Elementary. She described those items as "a pretty powerful layer of security."
The proposal would also add an early-intervention teacher shared between Cornwall on Hudson and Willow Avenue Elementary and provide 20 additional seats to the district's Universal Pre-K (UPK) program. "All of this with a proposed tax levy increase of 2.75%," Carty said, noting that the increase is below the state-mandated tax levy cap for the year, which she gave as 3.08%.
The district did not announce other budget dollar amounts or a breakdown of operating versus capital spending in the remarks. Carty said the levy increase "is well in line with the increases we're seeing in our neighboring districts, and it's still lower than the current core inflation number," but did not provide specific comparisons or cite sources for the inflation or neighboring-district figures.
Carty closed by asking residents to vote on the ballot day: "Please remember to vote on Tuesday, May 20 at Cornwall Central Middle School." She said the district will "go deeper into the details in our next videos," indicating further information will follow but not providing a timeline or additional documents in this presentation.
No motions, votes or formal board decisions were recorded in the provided remarks; the statements in this article summarize a public informational presentation about the budget and the items voters will consider on the May 20 ballot.
