Sweet Home administrators outline 2025–26 budget plan, urge use of tax-cap carryover and warn of rising transportation and special-education costs

Sweet Home Central School District administrators on Saturday presented a program-maintenance draft of the 2025–26 budget, projecting $104.87 million in revenue and recommending the board consider using available tax-cap carryover funds to reduce the need for deeper cuts.

The presentation focused on four revenue drivers — state aid, property taxes and the tax cap, county sales tax, and use of reserves — and on several major expense pressures: contracted transportation and driver shortages, rising out-of-district special-education tuitions, collective-bargaining step/contracted increases and benefits, and uncertainty about federal funding for electric bus purchases and charging infrastructure.

Why it matters: The board must adopt a proposed budget in April and the budget vote and school board election are scheduled for May. Administrators said decisions this spring about whether to use carryover tax-cap authority and how to allocate reserves will materially affect whether the district can preserve programs without larger tax increases.

Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Plant Operations Michael Feldman led the budget review and gave the board an initial revenue and expense picture. He said the governor’s executive budget run raised the district’s basic foundation aid by about $2.72 million and raised total executive-run state aid by roughly $3.55 million compared with the current year’s budget figures.

Feldman told the board the district’s projected revenue for 2025–26 is $104,865,123, about $4.45 million (4.4%) above the current year. Present draft expenditures total $104,729,512 (up 4.3%), leaving a small projected surplus of roughly $135,000 in the preliminary plan.

Tax cap and carryover: Feldman walked the board through the state tax-levy limit calculation and a district-specific tax-base growth factor set by the New York State Office of the State Comptroller. For Sweet Home that factor is 1.0 for 2025–26, which reduced the automatic growth available to the district compared with recent years. Because the district did not use its full allowable levy growth in 2024–25, a portion of that unused levy — called carryover — is available. Feldman recommended the board consider using the lesser of the statutory carryover options (about $814,021 in the district’s calculation) in addition to the baseline levy allowance; he said, “I would strongly recommend that a, we go to the cap and b, we take advantage of those funds.”

Revenue details: Feldman estimated Erie County sales-tax receipts for the district at $5.6 million for 2025–26. He also reminded the board that federal pandemic (CARES/CRRSA/ARP) funds ended (COVID funding ended Sept. 30, 2024) and will not be available going forward.

Major expense pressures: - Transportation: Feldman asked the board to anticipate an increase in contracted transportation of about $500,000 in the draft. He said the district’s contracted transportation budget this year is about $2.6 million but that actual contracted-transportation expenses could approach $4.0 million because of new runs, McKinney-Vento (homeless-student) transports, and market price increases. He described a regional driver shortage and said the district is exploring routing, start/stop times and in-house routing adjustments to reduce reliance on contracted runs.

- School bus purchases and electrification: The draft includes about $1.07 million for bus purchases (six buses: four large electric, one large diesel, one small diesel). Feldman noted the district had received funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and NYSERDA to offset electric-bus costs, but said federal and state support for electric buses and charging infrastructure is uncertain and “very much on the chopping block.” He gave per-bus figures used in planning: a large electric bus net price roughly $405,000 with approximately $200,000 from EPA and roughly $78,000 from NYSERDA factored in. The district has three electric buses arriving soon and funding awarded for a larger EPA grant (about $1.6 million to cover eight buses) that is at risk.

- Special education: Feldman reported an anticipated increase in out-of-district special-education tuition of about $900,000, which would bring total out-of-district tuition to roughly $3.0 million based on current placements. He noted the district receives excess-cost aid that typically reimburses a share of these expenditures in a later year.

- Charter schools and nursing: Fieldman proposed roughly $200,000 more for charter-school tuition (to about $1.4 million) and about $150,000 for contracted 24/7 nursing support for two students with that level of need.

- Staffing and retirements: The draft assumes 10 teacher retirements; administrators removed the retiring teachers’ step/benefit costs from the base budget while noting replacement hires (generally lower on the pay schedule) still represent a significant dollar impact. The district retained a teacher-retirement incentive line of $745,000 in the draft. Feldman described collective-bargaining commitments: Service Employees Association and confidential/clerical staff are projected to have a 6% annual increase in the contract year, while teachers are in year three of their contract and continue to receive step increases and increments.

Other financial details and uncertainty: Feldman said the district currently budgets $5,345,000 in use of reserves plus $300,000 from a debt reserve fund that is being drawn down. He estimated the district’s state-aid executive-run total at about $38.25 million (up about $3.55 million from the current year’s budget run). He also listed federal grant lines (Title I, IDEA, Title II, Title III, Title IV, universal pre-K and expansion) and warned that approximately $3.56 million in federal grant allocations in 2024–25 include about $2.16 million of salaries for roughly 35 staff positions; if federal grant streams change those personnel costs would need local funding.

Transportation operations and market issues: The district currently operates roughly 68 vehicles (about 55 full-size, 12–13 small buses and a few utility vehicles). Feldman and the board discussed hiring challenges: starting bus-driver pay is about $22.54 per hour, bus aides and school aides are around $16.24 per hour, and mechanics’ wages are roughly $23.20 per hour; the district trains bus aides to become drivers but said recruitment remains slow and retirements among drivers continue.

Process and next steps: Administrators said they will continue to refine the budget as final state-aid runs and health-insurance rate notices (the New York 44 trust increase typically arrives in late March) are received. The board has scheduled further budget study sessions (Administrators noted a March 11 study session and an April 8 update; the board adoption window is April 22 and the school budget vote is May 20). Feldman said the district will update the staffing plan and BOCES participation estimate and present a revised budget in March.

Procedural motions: The board approved roll call at the meeting start and later voted to adjourn the session; those were procedural motions recorded during open session.

What the board asked administrators to do: Board members pressed administrators for more detail on contracted transportation line items, options for reducing contracted runs by shifting routing or changing start/stop times, contingency plans if EPA/NYSERDA funding for electric buses is withdrawn, and specific estimates of charter-school enrollments and costs. Administrators agreed to bring detailed staffing proposals and updated health-insurance and state-aid numbers to the March study session.

A look ahead: Administrators said they prefer using the carryover levy option to blunt program cuts and recommended refining the staffing plan, clarifying grant-funded positions, and watching bus-electrification funding while finalizing the draft budget for an April board adoption vote.