May 16, 2008
by Susie Pender
Interestingly, that very question is the title of a section of the New York State Education Law that lays out the specific options available to a school board in the case of such an occurrence.
The board’s chosen response will depend upon the reason for the rejection of the budget. According to Janet Benton, president of the Chappaqua School Board, “if it were not to pass, the school board would convene and do what we could do to invite people to write to us or to come to the board. Our discussions would be about how to figure out what is going on, before we would determine what course of action to take.”
The potential courses of action are three: resubmit the budget or a revised budget to the voters by the third Tuesday in June, June 17; prepare and adopt a contingency budget without going back to the voters; or adopt a contingency budget and then present one or more propositions to the voters to vote to fund services that cannot be provided without voter approval.
The purpose of the contingency budget it to make sure that the district’s contractual obligations are met. According to the Chappaqua School District mailer on the budget, the contingency budget is $105,416,394, a 3.36% budget-to-budget increase, instead of the proposed $107,347,134, a 5.25% budget-to-budget increase.
The rejection of a budget does not require a reduction of services or programs in a school district. The decision of what to do in the event that the voters reject the budget will be determined by what comes out of the subsequent communications between the board and the voters.
Copyright 2008 NewCastleNOW.org