School District Explores Ways to Close a $2mm Budget Gap for 2025-26

Struggling to fill a $2,061mm budget gap for the proposed 2025-26 school budget, the Scarsdale School Board held their second budget session on February 3, 2025 where they explored expenses, revenues and possible cost savings to allow the proposed budget to come in below the mandated tax cap.

As Superintendent Drew Patrick explained, “The tax cap continues to place constraints on our ability to provide an ideal program. Salaries continues to go up more than 2% and we have experienced some big health care claims.” Since the district has a self-insured health plan the 25% increase in claims this year projected $1.6 to be $1.6 mm higher than budget is one item that is impacting the bottom line. Also significant is a projected $564,000 in retirement and social security costs and $245,000 in transportation due to the mandate to purchase EV buses.

Personnel

Included in the proposed budget are two full time teachers to support two new special education programs at Scarsdale Middle School and Scarsdale High School. The teachers will support an 8:2:1 class at the middle school which will be staffed with a teacher, a teaching assistant and an aid. Three students are expected to enroll in that class, though presumably it could hold up to eight students. At the high school a new 12:1:1 class will be formed for four or five students. That class will require an additional teacher and an aide. The district did not provide the associated costs for the teaching aids and assistant in the budget presentation.

Later at the meeting the Board reviewed rising healthcare costs which are driven by higher than expected claims. However it should be noted that healthcare costs may also be driven by the number of full time teachers which has grown by 74 in the last ten years from 599 in 2015 to 673 in 2024. During this ten-year period, overall district enrollment fell from 4775 to 4693 students. A report to the Board in December 2024 anticipates that another five to eleven special education teachers will need to be added to the staff in the next five years. See below:

Proposed Cuts

The administration made several proposals to reduce costs and also asked Athletic Director Cindy Parrott to explore what could be cut.

To start, Patrick removed the proposed addition of a half time math teacher at the high school, who would have taught an AT course in statistics.

Without offering details, he proposed to eliminate 6.5 full time teaching positions through attrition, i.e. not replacing some retirees.

He proposed that cost savings could be achieved by not including two contingency positions for elementary school classes in the budget. These contingency positions are customarily included in the budget to guarantee that the late enrollment of new students in the summer does not cause elementary school classes to exceed 22 students in grades K-3 and 24 students in grades 4 and 5.

Patrick proposed a change in policy that would permit 23 students in Grades K-3 as a result of late enrollments and 25 students in grades 4-5. However, if a section rose to one more additional student the district would propose to use reserves to hire an additional teacher.

He said that there are currently an average of 19 students in the K-3 classes and 21 in grades 4 and 5. He also said that this year there are ten classes at the maximum enrollment and three that are over the maximum.

Additional cost cutting proposals included reducing the flexibility of schedules at elementary schools which use extra staff to allow teachers meeting time during the school day, as well as “tolerating a lower rate of flexibility in the high school schedule.” This refers to the availability of class choices to meet students’ requests.

Patrick discussed looking for alternate revenue sources for some improvements, such as flexible furniture at the high school which the Scarsdale Schools Foundation might be willing to fund.

Reserves

Discussing the district’s reserves, Assistant Superintendent Andrew Lennon reviewed this slide.

It shows that overall reserves are projected to fall from $25.5 mm at the end of fiscal year 2021 to $20.8mm at the end of June 2025. This is a $1.1 million improvement over a November 2024 projection. The improvement is due to the restoration of $500,000 in foundation aid and higher than budgeted interest earnings. However, the Board was concerned about the healthcare reserve which was $5.15mm in 2021 is projected to fall to $2.8mm at the end of this school year.

In summary, the district would need to find $2,061mm in savings to allow the budget to fall within the state mandated tax cap, which Lennon estimates at 3.36%.

Interscholastic Athletics

Director of Athletics Cindy Parrot presented the $2.8 million budget for interscholastic athletics and the proposed $287,122 increase.

The proposed increases were for:

Athletic Trainers ($20K)
Uniforms, supplies and equipment including new football helmets ($15K)
$7K to provide for the presence of police at athletic events
$20 K for facility rental fees
$30K for BOCES officiating and additional services.

She noted that the entire athletic budget is just 1% of the almost $200 million school budget and was reluctant to propose cuts.

However, since she was asked how funds could be saved she provided the numbers on running programs for three non-sanctioned sports, including crew, fencing and squash.

See the slide below for the expenses associated with these sports.

Parrott discussed participation, transportation and scheduling for each of the three sports which have fewer students competing than other sports. However, parents and students are passionate about these teams and there was considerable pushback on the proposal to cut them at the Board of Education meeting that followed.

Before making a decision on this proposal, Board member Ron Schulhof asked Parrott to provide a “broad analysis of the cost per participant for all athletics.” He said, “Just picking the non-sanctioned sports is not enough. What are all the costs for all athletics by sport?”

At this point in the meeting, a student in the audience started shouting that he wanted to correct some of the information. He was asked to wait until the Board of Education meeting and to speak during public comments.”

Transportation

Ass’t Superintendent Andrew Lennon explained that new laws will require any new buses purchased by 2027 to be electric vehicles and by 2035, all buses on the road must be EV’s.

He explained that in the 2025-26 school year the district will acquire three large EV buses, which will be funded with $800,000 awarded by the EPA along with additional funds from through NYSERDA.

Moving forward, Lennon provided two plans to finance EV buses and the infrastructure needed to charge and maintain them. He said the district could “go it alone,” or partner with the Fleet Electrification Firm who will build out the required infrastructure and offer financing through 10 year leases.

The board indicated that they would opt to partner with the Fleet Electrification Firm.

Capital Projects

There are some capital improvements included in the current proposed budget. Among them are the first phase of field improvements identified in a joint field study done by the Village and the school district. The current budget calls for $1,250,000 in field improvements.

Also in the budget is $250,000 to replace elementary school playgrounds. Patrick explained that many of the elementary school playgrounds are 30 years old and are beyond their useful lives. He suggested that the district might partner with the PTA’s and the Scarsdale School Foundation for funding to revitalize the equipment.

Much discussion followed about the self-insured healthcare plan and whether or not it would be more cost efficient to enroll in a group plan. Patrick said that the district’s healthcare consultant and their health advisory committee will examine trends and attempt to determine why costs have escalated so dramatically.

Board Comments

Board member Ron Schulhof said he was not in favor of using $1 million from the health reserves to fund next year’s budget. He said, “We were at $5 mm in health reserves a few years ago. I would not be comfortable with another $1mm draw down of the health reserve to balance the budget. If we do that our health reserve will drop to $1.5 mm. We should be funding our reserves back up. Even with $2 mm more in revenues, we are drawing down reserves. There is a projected $3.743mm increase in health care costs increase for next year. What are the options? It is the prudent thing to do for our taxpayers. I don’t want to use our fund balance in years when the stock market is on a tear.”

He added, “I don’t personally support touching our class sizes. The proposed reductions were all in student experience.”

Leah Dembitzer said, “I agree with Ron about class sizes -- it is a hallmark of our school. It can also strain some of our classroom sizes. How much enrollment change is there historically after August 15?” She also said, “Pulling the math teacher will affect 28 students who want to take AT statistics.”

Colleen Brown agreed. She said, “Thinking about what makes Scarsdale, Scarsdale. It’s small class sizes, the house plan at the middle school and the ability to take courses you want at SHS. I would like to see the data around elementary school class sizes and class enrollments at the high school. We need data to guide us.”

Turning to Ron, Amber Yusuf said, “Thank you for your candor. I appreciate your thought process. I agree that we need a better understanding of our healthcare options because we are facing a difficult situation. It’s hard to understand if we are $2 mm above our projection, how would the Empire plan work?”

See the presentation here. The next budget planning session will be held on Monday March 3, 2025.