Nyack Voters To Decide On 2018-19 School Budget

NYACK, NY — Voters in the Nyack school district will be going to the polls Tuesday, May 15 to have their say on the budget for the 2018-19 school year. They will be choosing among three people running for two seats on the Board of Education. There's also a Capital Reserve Proposition on the ballot.

The proposed spending package is $84.4 million, up 1.65 percent from the current year.

School officials said they would use $1 million in fund balance reserves to offset the increase. The tax levy increase is 2.1 percent, compliant with the state's property tax cap.

More than 100 underfunded and unfunded mandates continue to represent a problem for the district's budget. They require specific expenditures in areas of instruction, special education, bilingual education, auditing, testing, scoring, staff development, professional evaluation requirements and health/safety measures, school officials said.

Initiatives addressed in the budget plan include the AVID Program to address the opportunity gap in

AP and Honors programs at both Nyack Middle School and Nyack High School; and a new

VOIP telephone system district-wide to reduce the frequency of outages.

The capital reserve proposition seeks four things:

• Expend funds ($2M) from the Reserve for Districtwide Security Upgrades
• Expand the scope of the Reserve funds to include future upgrades to instructional spaces such as science labs and school libraries for 21st Century learning
• Increase the amount (Ultimate Limit) of the Reserve funds from $10M to $15M
• Extend the Probable Term from 11 to 13 years

Running for school board are two incumbents: Damon Bender and Karen Hughes; and challenger Nathalie Riobe-Taylor.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, May 15.

Poll 2: Hilltop Building: 13A Dickinson Ave.
Poll 3: Valley Cottage School: 26 Lake Rd.
Poll 4: Upper Nyack School: 336 No. Broadway

Unsure of your polling location? Click here.