A third of Bedford Central voters ignored budget question on ballot

By JEFF MORRIS

The Bedford Central School District budget for 2026-27 won big in the vote on May 19, but the final vote breakdown shows it won a lot bigger in some places than in others.

Oddly, the numbers reveal that voters were more interested in casting ballots for the two candidates running unopposed for two open board seats, than in deciding whether or not to support the proposed budget. The total number of ballots cast for and against the budget was 1,026, while the total number of votes cast for the school board was 1,530 — a difference of 504 votes. To put it another way, fully a third of those who turned out to vote in the board election chose not to vote at all on the budget.

 Budget

Overall, the budget was approved 755 to 271, 73.6% to 26.4%.

Most notably, at Mount Kisco Elementary School, the vote was overwhelming: 196 to 20, or 90.7% approval. There were a total of 216 budget votes cast there.

Conversely, the polling place where the most votes were cast was also where the budget got the least support. There were a total of 268 votes on the budget at Pound Ridge Elementary School, of which 166 were Yes and 102 were No. That’s an approval rate of 61.9%.

West Patent Elementary School was second in approval but third in turnout, with the 197 votes cast divided as 159 Yes, 38 No — a winning percentage of 80.7%.

Bedford Hills Elementary and Bedford Village Elementary had nearly identical vote totals, with 172 votes at the former and 173 at the latter. The budget, though, had a higher approval rate at BHES, where it was 123 for, 49 against, or 71.5% in favor, than at BVES, where 111 voted for and 62 against, for a 64.1% approval. 

School board

Of the two school board candidates, Erin Hayes drew more support, with 775 total votes, while Leo Sposato had 757.

Hayes was running for the first time. Sposato was already serving on the board, having come in fourth in last year’s seven-way race for four seats, which enabled him to fill the remaining year of an unexpired term. Both Hayes and Sposato have now been elected to full three-year terms.

As with the budget votes, there were distinct differences between polling places, with Mount Kisco the one location where Sposato picked up significantly more votes than Hayes. Sposato is from Mount Kisco, and at MKES, he got 180 votes compared to 164 for Hayes. There were 344 total votes at that location.

At West Patent Elementary, the tables were turned, with Hayes getting 166 votes while Sposato got 144 out of the 310-vote total.

Sposato only outperformed Hayes in one other location, and there, just barely. At Bedford Hills Elementary, Sposato got 128 votes and Hayes 126, for a total of 254. The totals were also nearly equal in Bedford Village, where Hayes came out on top with 128 votes to Sposato’s 120. 

Pound Ridge was again the site with the biggest turnout. There, Hayes had 191 votes and Sposato 185, for a total of 376. 

The gap between total votes cast for the school board and those cast for the budget was reflected at every polling place. The biggest gap was at MKES, where there were 128 fewer votes on the budget than for board members, a difference of 37%. 

At other locations, the deficit ranged from 36% to 30%. The only polling place where the gap was less than 30% was Pound Ridge, where it was 29%, with 108 fewer votes on the budget than on the board candidates.

An up-and-down pattern emerges when looking at the total number of votes on the budget each year. There were a thousand fewer votes on the budget this year than last year, when there were 2,025 budget votes cast. However, in 2024 budget votes totaled 1,091 — just 65 more than this year. Yet in 2023, there were a total of 2,584 votes. The budget passed in each of those years.