BCSD voters will decide on budget, board candidates

By JEFF MORRIS 

The Bedford Central School District’s annual budget vote and Board of Education trustee election is Tuesday, May 19, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.  

Voting takes place at the elementary school “in your attendance area.”

Voters who do not have children in district schools can find their polling place by going to the BCSD website, bcsdny.org.

The community is being asked to vote on the annual budget and the election of two board trustees. There are no additional propositions on the ballot.

Board candidates

There are two candidates for two open seats: Leo Sposato and Erin Hayes. They  will serve three-year terms, from July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029.

Sposato is already serving as a trustee. Hayes is a first-time candidate.

Sposato is a Mount Kisco resident who has 30 years of experience as a high school English teacher in Yorktown, two master’s degrees (in teaching and educational leadership), and has worked directly with superintendents and school boards on districtwide communication initiatives as a former director of communications for the Yorktown Central School District.

Hayes lives in Bedford Corners and is originally from Ridgefield, Conn. She graduated from Ridgefield High School in 1998 and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2002. 

She served five years as president of the West Patent Elementary School Association, and is also a member of the Foundation for BCSD. She has held an elder position for four years at Mount Kisco Presbyterian Church.

2026-27 budget

The proposed budget, adopted by the Board of Education on April 22, calls for $165,895,484 in spending, which is $4,989,984, or 3.10%, more than 2025-26.

The revenue from property tax will be $149,468,630, an increase of $3,809,421 or 2.62% from the current budget. Non-property revenue is expected to be $15,611,644, and $815,210 will be assigned from the fund balance, up from $404,018 assigned last year. The budget remains below the tax cap.

The assigned fund balance is part of the strategy used by Superintendent Robert Glass to achieve one of his “high-level outcomes”: to close what was described as a $5 million budget gap. He also cited aligning K-12 certified and classified staffing to needs using modified zero-based budgeting; continuing to share K-12 staff across buildings where necessary for efficiency and equity; and maintaining all K-12 programs and electives.

The budgeting method resulted in an overall reduction of $2.59 million for personnel, though most of that is attributed to attrition through retirements rather than staff cuts.

Through negotiations, the four-day rotation in elementary art and music programs was maintained, after pushback from parents and board members against a proposed five-day rotation, which would have resulted in a reduction in art and music class time. However, critics continued to express frustration with the fact that some art and music faculty were not being replaced after retirements. Glass insisted there was no change to the program at  FLHS and FLMS, and that before and after school enrichment programs are being maintained.