KLSD: Two board members not seeking re-election

Basics of the proposed KLSD 2025-26 budget. KLSD GRAPHIC

By JEFF MORRIS

The Katonah-Lewisboro Board of Education adopted the superintendent’s proposed 2025-26 budget at its March 27 meeting, and learned it will be losing at least one member — with the subsequent revelation it will lose two.

Burke, Hadlock not running

Trustee Rory Burke, who has served on the board since 2019, announced, “After six years serving on the school board I made a decision not to seek reelection to a third term.” He said it had been an honor to work alongside dedicated educators, parents and community members to support the students and schools. “I want to thank you for your support, collaboration and passion for education over the past five years,” he told the board. “I look forward to seeing the district continue to thrive in the years ahead.” 

After Burke concluded his announcement by encouraging people to consider running for the school board, saying he wanted people in the community to know there was going to be an open seat, board president Julia Hadlock laughed and said, “There might be more than one; there are three open seats.” 

Asked by The Recorder to elaborate on that cryptic comment, Hadlock responded, “I hadn’t been thinking about announcing at the board meeting last week, so I didn’t say anything when Rory announced.” But, she added, “After serving three terms on the KLSD school board, I will not seek reelection this year. It has been an honor to serve and I’m grateful for the opportunity to volunteer on behalf of our students, their families and the community for the past nine years. I will miss it, and hope to continue to be in service to the community in a different capacity in the future.”

The third open seat is held by Jon Poffenberger, who was elected in 2024 to fill out an unexpired term. Poffenberger has not yet said publicly if he is running. Candidate nominating petitions are not due at the district office until Monday, April 21, at 5 p.m.

With Burke and Hadlock leaving, the only trustee remaining with more than a single term on the board will be Marjorie Schiff.

Adopting the budget 

Superintendent Raymond Blanch’s proposed 2025-26 budget had already been reviewed in detail over several meetings. Assistant Superintendent for Business Lisa Herlihy gave a quick recap. She emphasized that as they began budgeting, they were not yet aware that there would be significant reductions in expense-based aid rations from the state, and had to quickly reprioritize to make up the revenues that they lost. 

Herlihy spent more time discussing the specifics of proposed propositions that will appear on the May 20 ballot, the wording of which had just been finalized by the district’s lawyers.

There are three propositions up for approval: Prop. 1 is the budget itself; Prop. 2 authorizes using existing funds from 2024-25 for electrical infrastructure upgrades; and Prop. 3 asks voters to approve receiving an additional 10 percent in state aid for an energy performance contract. 

Unusually, this year there is no proposition authorizing the purchase of new school buses, which is normally Prop. 2. Instead, there is one authorizing the district “to embark upon certain electrical infrastructure upgrades including upgrades and improvements to increase the electrical service capacity with additional transformers and infrastructure units, and provide appropriate underground connections and installation of vehicle charging stations at the John Jay High School campus.”

The proposition says it is to include “all labor, materials, equipment, apparatus and incidental costs associated therewith for a total cost not to exceed $750,000 to be funded through a transfer of said amount from monies remaining in the 2024-2025 general fund balance to the capital fund.”

There is a New York state mandate that all new school bus purchases must be electric starting in 2027, though many school districts are facing challenges in transitioning due to costs and community resistance to the mandate. In January, Burke reported from a meeting of the Sustainability Committee that the most difficult part of switching over to electric buses was the infrastructure needed for charging. The Recorder subsequently spoke with Michael Lavoie, KLSD’s director of facilities, who revealed that the district already has one electric bus, EV-1, which has been in operation for over a year. He said they had put a charger in for it, and were looking to put in a second charger for a new smaller EV bus, a Micro Bird, that was already on order, and were in the preliminary design stages for upgrading infrastructure to bring more power onto the campus for additional chargers, as well as for a charger at the bus garage in Katonah.

At the time, Herlihy said the district was conducting a bus electrification impact study, which would provide insights into the total infrastructure costs, number of buses required, and their associated expenses.

Herlihy spent considerable time explaining the third proposition, regarding the district’s Energy Performance Contract with Honeywell. Herlihy said an EPC enables a district to improve energy efficiency, generally with little to no impact on the school district’s budget. In this case, the proposition asks, “Shall the Board of Education be authorized to embark upon an energy savings capital project with Honeywell International, Inc.,” lists multiple solar array installations at each school (including a ground-mounted solar array at Lewisboro Elementary School) “and other appropriate energy conservation measures as authorized by Article 9 of the Energy Law and the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education” at an estimated cost “not to exceed $12,000,000 to be financed pursuant to law in anticipation of the realization of energy cost savings over the term of an energy performance contract resulting in no cost to the School District for the purposes of receiving an additional 10 percent in New York State Education Department building aid.”

The key part of the proposition is in the last few words. “This voter proposition does not decide whether we will proceed with the EPC,” said Herlihy, noting that a school district is permitted to enter into an EPC without voter authorization. “Prop. 3 simply allows us to qualify for the additional 10 percent aid that will offset the cost.” Blanch added, “I tell my kids there’s no such thing as free money, but this kind of sounds like free money. We get 10 percent back just by asking the community to please let us do this.” Hadlock further emphasized those points.

Herlihy also explained that the latest estimates are that the EPC project will cost $8 million; the reason the proposition says $12 million is because if the amount shown turns out be less than the actual cost, they will not be reimbursed for the difference, so they included a larger amount to be safe.  

The overall proposed budget total is $127,410,469, with a budget-to-budget percentage increase of 2.49 percent, within the tax cap.