School board looks at non-instructional budget

By JEFF MORRIS 

In a session on the non-instructional portions of the 2026-27 budget, the “elephant in the room” facing the Board of Education, in terms of largest spending increases, ended up being health insurance. But first, there were many other areas to get through.

“In many ways, the non-instructional side of the budget is what allows our instructional mission to succeed,” said Lisa Herlihy, assistant superintendent for business, introducing the presentation at the board’s Feb. 12 meeting.

Herlihy went into a bit more detail about the reasons for decreases in state aid than she had at the first budget presentation, revealing that the district’s aid had been reduced by $1,766,164 over two years. She explained that the district experienced a decline in enrollment from year to year, coupled with an increase in assessed value; this led to higher wealth ratios and lower state aid ratios.

Under Central Administrative Services, one increase Herlihy mentioned is the addition of a full-time executive assistant to the business office. She said there had been one secretary reporting both to her and Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction Julia Drake. 

“Julie and I used to share a secretary, and we wanted her to stay here,” she said with a laugh. “It was a lot to support two assistant superintendents, so we are now looking at bringing on another person.” 

That results in a line in the Business Administration budget increasing from $896,373 to $996,753, a $100,380 or 11.2% increase.

Superintendent Raymond Blanch noted there is a realignment of full-time equivalent positions across the organization, which will become more evident in two weeks when they do the instructional budget. He said there need to be reductions as well as realignment. 

“Every time a position is open, we ask ourselves is this a position that needs to be replaced?” he said. “That needs to be replaced fully? Is it in the best place to support the organization?” 

Blanch was referring to the need to reduce expenses in order to bring the budget in under the tax cap. At the first budget meeting in January, Herlihy noted that even under a best case scenario, expenses would exceed revenues by approximately $1.37 million, and under a more conservative assumption there would be a significant structural gap of approximately $6.7 million. The early estimate of the total budget if the district went to the tax cap anticipated a budget increase of about $4.4 million.

Much of the presentation consisted of an enumeration of numbers of people working in different areas and descriptions of what they do, without any specifics about what the financial implications are for the budget. Neill Alleva, the assistant superintendent for human resources, pointed out the district has a total of 750 employees, with 98 new employees hired and brought on board thus far during 2025-26, and that employees include teachers, transportation, operations and maintenance, coaches, administrators, and support staff. There was a further drilling down into some areas, including operations and maintenance, which is proposed for an increase of 1.02%, or $85,665. Director Michael Lavoie listed all the areas within that portion of the budget, which include six school buildings totaling 661,125 square feet; 174 acres of land, including 11 athletic fields; two wastewater treatment plants; bus garage; transportation office; oversight of $49.5 million in bond work; continuous capital improvements, preventative maintenance and repairs; and a five-year building condition survey.

Transportation Director Nora Beltran also appeared, describing a department with 93 district vehicles; school buses that travel over 54 square miles and approximately 818,000 miles per year, providing transportation for over 2,000 students daily. She said the average bus age is five years, and there are seven mechanics. The transportation budget is to increase $105,017, or 2.16%.

Technology Services is planned for a 6.8% increase, or $253,132. While most of that budget is instructional technology — $2,638,143 out of the $3,976,687 total, versus $1,338,544 for non-instructional — for 2026-27, non-instructional will have a 61.65% increase of $510,470, while instructional will actually decrease, down $257,338, or 8.89%. Herlihy explained the discrepancy, saying the state and BOCES had reclassified their co-operative services, or “co-sers.” 

“Where, for example, network manager and support and everything like that used to be on an instructional line, the state has come back and said that’s really a non-instructional thing,” she said. Also, said Herlihy, the district adopted a one-to-one device program in the spring of 2020, and regular replacement of those devices will continue to increase the technology line.

As had been mentioned at the prior discussion, employee benefits are a significant portion of the budget, though it is a mixed bag, with most lines increasing and some decreases. Overall it is increasing 6.78%, or $2,664,092, with the largest single rise in hospital and medical insurance, which is increasing $2,398,215. 

Both Blanch and trustee Marjorie Schiff called attention to that, noting that though the percentage increase on that line, at 10.61%, is seemingly on a par with other benefit increases, the amount from which it starts is larger than everything else by several orders of magnitude. “You’re talking about two thirds of the anticipated increase of about $4.4 million right there,” said Blanch. 

“When you look back at that $4.4 million, right there the health insurance premium is accounting for 54% of the levy increase available to us,” said Schiff, agreeing with Blanch’s point that if you add in the entire benefits increase it is closer to two-thirds.

“We’re not alone in experiencing this, and this is why we’re seeing so many districts in the region really struggle in this environment to come in under the tax cap,” Schiff said, adding that some mandates imposed by the state are “truly exorbitant and crushing districts.”

A review of the instructional portion of the budget is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 26.