§ 1608. Estimated expenses for ensuing year. 1. It shall be the duty of the trustees of each common school district to present at the annual budget hearing a detailed statement in writing of the amount of money which will be required for the ensuing year for school purposes, specifying the several purposes and the amount for each. The amount for each purpose estimated necessary for payments to boards of cooperative educational services shall be shown in full, with no deduction of estimated state aid. The amount of state aid provided and its percentage relationship to the total expenditures shall also be shown. This section shall not be construed to prevent the trustees from presenting such statement at a budget hearing held not less than seven nor more than fourteen days prior to a special meeting called for the purpose, nor from presenting a supplementary and amended statement or estimate at any time.

Ask a legal question, get an answer ASAP!
Click here to chat with a lawyer about your rights.

2. Such statement shall be completed at least seven days before the budget hearing at which it is to be presented and copies thereof shall be prepared and made available, upon request and at the school district offices, at any public library or free association library within the district and on the school district's internet website, if one exists, to residents within the district during the period of fourteen days immediately preceding the annual meeting and election or special district meeting at which the budget vote will occur and at such meeting or hearing. The board shall also as a part of the notice required by section two thousand three of this chapter give notice of the date, time and place of the budget hearing and that a copy of such statement may be obtained by any resident in the district at each schoolhouse in the district in which school is maintained during certain designated hours on each day other than a Saturday, Sunday or holiday during the fourteen days immediately preceding such meeting. The board shall include notice of the availability of such statement at least once during the school year in any district-wide mailing distributed.

3. Commencing with the proposed budget for the nineteen hundred ninety-seven–ninety-eight school year, such proposed budget shall be in plain language and shall be consistent with regulations promulgated by the commissioner pursuant to subdivision twenty-six of section three hundred five of this chapter. Categorization of and format for revenue, including payments in lieu of taxes, property tax refunds from certiorari proceedings, expenditure, transfer, and fund balance information and changes in such data from the prior year and, in the case of a resubmitted or amended budget, changes in such information from the prior year's submitted budget, shall be complete and accurate and set forth in such a manner as to best promote public comprehension and readability.

4. Commencing with the proposed budget for the nineteen hundred ninety-eight–ninety-nine school year, such proposed budget shall be presented in three components: a program component, a capital component and an administrative component which shall be separately delineated in accordance with regulations of the commissioner after consultation with local school district officials. The administrative component shall include, but need not be limited to, office and central administrative expenses, traveling expenses and all compensation, salaries and benefits of all school administrators and supervisors, including business administrators, superintendents of schools and deputy, assistant, associate or other superintendents under all existing employment contracts or collective bargaining agreements any and all expenditures associated with the operation of the office of trustee or board of trustees, the office of the superintendent of schools, general administration, the school business office, consulting costs not directly related to direct student services and programs, planning and all other administrative activities. The program component shall include, but need not be limited to, all program expenditures of the school district, including the salaries and benefits of teachers and any school administrators or supervisors who spend a majority of their time performing teaching duties, and all transportation operating expenses. The capital component shall include, but need not be limited to, all transportation capital, debt service, and lease expenditures; costs resulting from judgments in tax certiorari proceedings or the payment of awards from court judgments, administrative orders or settled or compromised claims; and all facilities costs of the school district, including facilities lease expenditures, the annual debt service and total debt for all facilities financed by bonds and notes of the school district, and the costs of construction, acquisition, reconstruction, rehabilitation or improvement of school buildings, provided that such budget shall include a rental, operations and maintenance section that includes base rent costs, total rent costs, operation and maintenance charges, cost per square foot for each facility leased by the school district, and any and all expenditures associated with custodial salaries and benefits, service contracts, supplies, utilities, and maintenance and repairs of school facilities. For the purposes of the development of a budget for the nineteen hundred ninety-eight–ninety-nine school year, the trustee or board of trustees shall separate the district's program, capital and administrative costs for the nineteen hundred ninety-seven–ninety-eight school year in the manner as if the budget for such year had been presented in three components.

5. The trustee or board of trustees shall append to the statement of estimated expenditures a detailed statement of the total compensation to be paid to the superintendent of schools, and any assistant or associate superintendents of schools in the ensuing school year, including a delineation of the salary, annualized cost of benefits and any in-kind or other form of remuneration. The trustees shall also append a list of all other school administrators and supervisors, if any, whose annual salary will be eighty-five thousand dollars or more in the ensuing school year, with the title of their positions and annual salary identified; provided however, that the commissioner may adjust such salary level to reflect increases in administrative salaries after June thirtieth, nineteen hundred ninety-eight. The trustees shall submit a copy of such list and statement, in a form prescribed by the commissioner, of compensation to the commissioner within five days after their preparation. The commissioner shall compile such data, together with the data submitted pursuant to subdivision three of section seventeen hundred sixteen of this chapter, into a single statewide compilation, which shall be made available to the governor, the legislature, and other interested parties upon request.

6. Each year, the board of education shall prepare a school district report card, pursuant to regulations of the commissioner, and shall make it publicly available by transmitting it to local newspapers of general circulation, appending it to copies of the proposed budget made publicly available as required by law, making it available for distribution at the annual meeting, and otherwise disseminating it as required by the commissioner. Such report card shall include measures of the academic performance of the school district, on a school by school basis, and measures of the fiscal performance of the district, as prescribed by the commissioner. Pursuant to regulations of the commissioner, the report card shall also compare these measures to statewide averages for all public schools, and statewide averages for public schools of comparable wealth and need, developed by the commissioner. Such report card shall include, at a minimum, any information on the school district regarding pupil performance and expenditure per pupil required to be included in the annual report by the regents to the governor and the legislature pursuant to section two hundred fifteen-a of this chapter; and any other information required by the commissioner. School districts (i) identified as having fifteen percent or more of their students in special education, or (ii) which have fifty percent or more of their students with disabilities in special education programs or services sixty percent or more of the school day in a general education building, or (iii) which have eight percent or more of their students with disabilities in special education programs in public or private separate educational settings shall indicate on their school district report card their respective percentages as defined in this subparagraph and subparagraphs (i) and (ii) of this paragraph as compared to the statewide average.

7. a. Each year, commencing with the proposed budget for the two thousand–two thousand one school year, the trustee or board of trustees shall prepare a property tax report card, pursuant to regulations of the commissioner, and shall make it publicly available by transmitting it to local newspapers of general circulation, appending it to copies of the proposed budget made publicly available as required by law, making it available for distribution at the annual meeting, and otherwise disseminating it as required by the commissioner. Such report card shall include: (i) the amount of total spending and total estimated school tax levy that would result from adoption of the proposed budget and the percentage increase or decrease in total spending and total school tax levy from the school district budget for the preceding school year; and (ii) the district's tax levy limit determined pursuant to section two thousand twenty-three-a of this title, and the estimated school tax levy, excluding any levy necessary to support the expenditures pursuant to subparagraphs (i) through (iv) of paragraph i of subdivision two of section two thousand twenty-three-a of this title, that would result from adoption of the proposed budget; and (iii) the projected enrollment growth for the school year for which the budget is prepared, and the percentage change in enrollment from the previous year; and (iv) the percentage increase in the consumer price index, as defined in paragraph c of this subdivision; and (v) the projected amount of the unappropriated unreserved fund balance that will be retained if the proposed budget is adopted, the projected amount of the reserved fund balance, the projected amount of the appropriated fund balance, the percentage of the proposed budget that the unappropriated unreserved fund balance represents, the actual unappropriated unreserved fund balance retained in the school district budget for the preceding school year, and the percentage of the school district budget for the preceding school year that the actual unappropriated unreserved fund balance represents, and a schedule of reserve funds, setting forth the name of each reserve fund, a description of its purpose, the balance as of the close of the third quarter of the current school district fiscal year and a brief statement explaining any plans for the use of each such reserve fund for the ensuing fiscal year.

b. A copy of the property tax report card prepared for the annual district meeting shall be submitted to the department in the manner prescribed by the department by the end of the business day next following approval of the report card by the trustee or board of trustees, but no later than twenty-four days prior to the statewide uniform voting day. The department shall compile such data for all school districts whose budgets are subject to a vote of the qualified voters and shall make such compilation available electronically at least ten days prior to the statewide uniform voting day.

c. For purposes of this subdivision, "percentage increase in the consumer price index" shall mean the percentage that represents the product of one hundred and the quotient of: (i) the average of the national consumer price indexes determined by the United States department of labor for the twelve-month period preceding January first of the current year minus the average of the national consumer price indexes determined by the United States department of labor for the twelve-month period preceding January first of the prior year, divided by (ii) the average of the national consumer price indexes determined by the United States department of labor for the twelve-month period preceding January first of the prior year, with the result expressed as a decimal to two places.