School districts across the state experienced a give and take with state aid this year, and BKW was no exception.
When Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced his executive state budget proposal in February, the accompanying state aid run showed BKW receiving a substantial increase in building aid to offset the bond payments for its capital project, but the district’s operating aid showed a decrease of $1,252,347 compared to 2010-11.
When the state budget was adopted by the Legislature in April, BKW received $158,058 more in state aid than was projected in the governor’s budget, but it lost another $18,960 in expense-driven aid, resulting in a net total of $139,098 in reinstated aid. The Legislature also reinstated state aid for summer special education and BOCES shared business services that had been reduced or eliminated under the governor’s proposal.
The district was able to offset some of the loss of state aid by using the $384,463 from the Federal Education Jobs Fund the district received in fall 2010. Knowing that the district would be losing the $459,337 it received in 2010-11 through the federal ARRA program (which has ended), BKW elected to apply the Jobs Fund monies to the 2011-12 budget.
Also in April, the legislature approved a measure that would allow districts to use some of their excess Employee Benefit Accrued Liability Reserve to offset the tax levy. BKW will apply $200,000 in EBALR funds to offset the tax levy in 2011-12.
Even with the restored state aid, money from EBALR and
the Jobs Fund, the district still had to cut $284,001 from its budget to
achieve a 3.51 percent tax levy increase.
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