Somers reviews 2025–26 noninstructional budget; benefits and health insurance drive projected increase

The Somers Central School District Board of Education reviewed the district’s proposed 2025–26 noninstructional budget at its Jan. 21 meeting, with district staff projecting a roughly $1.2 million increase over the current adopted budget and identifying benefits and health-insurance costs as the largest drivers.

Chris, the district staff member leading the presentation, told the board the total noninstructional increase is roughly $1.2 million with benefits accounting for approximately $910,000 of that change. Key drivers named in the presentation included small increases in retirement-system contributions, a projected rise in teacher health insurance for calendar-year 2026 (presenters used a conservative 12–14% planning figure) and a modest increase for the Putnam Northern Westchester benefits consortium for noncertified staff.

Technology: Kim Blau, the district’s director of technology, described changes to the 1:1 device program. Beginning next school year, fifth-grade students will receive Dell Latitude laptops rather than iPads to better prepare for middle-school coursework and to standardize the device-replacement cycle on a four-year cadence. Kim also outlined planned backbone-network, wireless access point and backup-power upgrades for the intermediate school funded through lease-purchase infrastructure funds.

Transportation and safety: Transportation remains contracted to Royal Coach for drivers and vehicle services; Somers directly employs 22 part-time bus monitors plus a transportation supervisor and office staff. The district reported 34 in-district routes and 17 out-of-district routes (51 total this year), roughly 680,000 annual miles for contract calculations and a fuel budget based on an estimated 80,000 gallons at $3.25 per gallon for planning. The board heard that Westchester County’s stop-arm camera program has begun ticketing and that Somers’ buses received 24 tickets to date; the district does not receive a share of those fines.

Buildings, grounds and safety: Chris McCartney and facilities staff reviewed a coming lead-in-water sampling program required by state mandates, beginning with SIS and Primrose and later the high school and middle school; the district expects to sample roughly 350–400 taps. They also described required triennial asbestos inspections and new senior-custodian coverage at several sites. Dan Corrado (Alteris Consulting) described safety work: four school resource officers, contracted evening/after-school guards, about 300 security cameras installed in an earlier bond project and recent targeted camera additions to remove blind spots.

Purchasing and contracts: Presenters discussed a recent contract extension for Edutech services and work with BOCES; a late change prevented a full move of services to BOCES, so the district extended a vendor contract for one year and issued a new RFP for next year.

Ending: District staff told the board a detailed line-item spreadsheet exists for the noninstructional budget and will be shared with the board and public; the next budget presentations will cover instructional spending and later summary and adoption steps toward the May vote.