Superintendent Jaycee Welsh outlined the district’s tentative numbers, throwing in the caveat that things could change before the school board convenes on April 24 to adopt a final budget proposal that will then be put to district voters for approval.

“This is just a draft,” she said. “This is our first stab at seeing if we can make the numbers match.”

As it stands now, TLCSD is slated to ask voters to approve a 3.08% increase in its tax levy, which is the tax cap, and requires a simple majority to carry. If the district were to propose any more of a tax increase, it would require a 60% supermajority approval from voters. Welsh did not anticipate that the board’s adopted budget proposal to exceed the tax cap.

“We’re not going out for a supermajority this year,” she said. “We believe that we’re able to balance the budget with it at the tax cap,” she said.

A packed crowd of nearly 50 attended the Tupper Lake Central School District’s Board of Education meeting Monday evening in the L.P. Quinn Elementary School’s library. (Enterprise photo — Chris Gaige)

The tentative 2025-26 proposal calls for a tax levy of $10,703,630, up from last year’s $10,383,450. The total proposed budget is $21,982,546. In addition to district tax revenue, the budget includes $10,578,916 in state aid, $550,000 from miscellaneous revenue sources and a $150,000 unassigned fund balance.

Of the state aid, the vast majority — $7,731,886 — is foundation aid, a 2% raise from what the district received last year. Another $1,503,903 is BOCES aid, $582,140 is building aid, $539,840 is transportation aid, $120,457 is high cost excess aid, $56,511 is software, library and textbook aid, $34,802 is private excess aid and $9,377 is hardware and technology aid.

The budget roll-out comes on the heels of a long-term financial assessment that warned of significant future deficits to TLCSD unless significant cost-cutting measures were implemented beginning with the 2025-26 budget. To read the story on the assessment, visit tinyurl.com/m7xj4p2k.

Welsh and TLCSD Business Manager Jessica Rivers took the advice into consideration when drafting the tentative proposal.

This led to some tough decisions. The district’s financial advisor said the only way to achieve meaningful cost reductions was to cut back on expenses associated with personnel.

“He also said now is not the time to count paperclips — it’s to look at large costs,” she said. “Personnel takes 70% of our budget, so we need to look at some of our personnel costs.”

The proposal cuts nearly a dozen positions in the district, of which 7.5 are paraprofessional and four are teaching.

Welsh emphasized that this was not the same thing as laying off that many staff members. The reductions were mostly achieved through not hiring replacements when people retire, or by consolidating positions.

“We’re going to be eliminating 11.5 positions,” she said. “Please note, I said positions and not people.”

Welsh said there will likely be two or three layoffs. She said that in the next week or so, district administrators will reach out to the staff members who could potentially be laid off to let them know as far in advance as possible.

However, specific layoffs will not be finalized until after a budget is voted on. She said those who are laid off will be placed on a preferred eligibility list for future employment as other openings occur.

Welsh said TLCSD would be taking on several responsibilities that the district currently pays BOCES to handle on its behalf. These include financial and food services. She said these will save the district money, as they could be provided in-house for a lower price.

Although all food is currently prepared at TLCSD buildings, some personnel are currently cross-contracted and provided through the Capital Region BOCES. Welsh said that while she could not speak to TLCSD’s original reasoning for this, which occurred prior to her being hired last summer, it was not serving the district well financially, unlike the majority of school districts.

“Most districts break even and some even get to put a little bit of money in their fund balance,” she said. “Over the past two years, we have lost $250,000 in food service and we can’t be doing that.”

While TLCSD moves away from some BOCES services, it plans to stick with others. Welsh said these are both high in quality and the most cost-effective way to provide them to its students. The proposed budget does not make any changes to the career and technical education programs provided through BOCES.

“I cannot say this enough: this has nothing to do with CTE,” she said. “Our CTE programs are in full swing. Any student that wants to be involved in CTE can be involved in CTE. We will fully fund that.”

She added that these skills are the future of the community, and would not be pared back.

“If you learn anything from tonight — CTE is not being touched,” she said.

None of the athletic or extracurricular programs TLCSD currently offers are expected to be eliminated in the district’s tentative budget.

TLCSD also plans to continue contracting with BOCES for its labor relations, human resources and health insurance management. While pooling resources with its neighboring districts remains the most cost-effective way to provide these services, rising healthcare costs were cited as the largest singular expense increase TLCSD had to account for.

This year, they are anticipated to rise $599,000, or 12%. Welsh said this was largely due to a slew of major healthcare expense claims that were taken this year. These impacted all school districts that are part of the Franklin-Essex-Hamilton School Districts’ Health Insurance Consortium, as the costs are shared across districts.

Other expense increases for the district include $345,000 in contractual increases and $335,000 in supply cost increases, along with $382,000 in lost revenue from previous years’ funding sources that will have run out and no longer be available for the district to tap.

Taken together, the district is staring down $1,661,000 in expense increases, almost all of which it is obligated to pay, according to Timbs’ long-term financial analysis presentation in March. Through the proposed tax levy increase, state aid increases and various cost-cutting measures district officials are seeking to implement, TLCSD projects $1,660,180 in budgetary savings, accounting for all but $820, or 99.95%.

Welsh said getting to that point was not easy, and thanked Rivers for her efforts it took to produce a budget that was nearly balanced. The two administrators, in consultation with Dr. Rick Timbs — the district’s financial advisor who delivered the long-term financial assessment — will continue to review the proposal line-by-line before presenting it to the Board of Education, and then ultimately the voters, to adopt.

“Jessica is probably so sick of staring at my face across my desk because we have looked at this budget a hundred times,” she said. “And we’re going to look at it a hundred times more — just FYI, Jessica.”

Rivers, who presented some of the accounting details at Monday’s meeting, said it was imperative that TLCSD officials did all they could to counter the rising costs the district would be forced to meet, especially after last year’s controversial budget, which increased the tax levy by 8.75%.

“We never want our tax cap to go like it did last year,” she said. “It skyrocketed. We’d like to keep it at a level rate.”

The school board’s next meeting is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. on April 24 at the L.P. Quinn Elementary School’s library, located at 295 Hosely Ave. The board will vote on adopting the budget. If approved, Welsh said the next step is to get the word out to voters. She said budget transparency was a paramount goal as she rounds out her first year as superintendent.

“If the budget is adopted (by the board) at that point, we will have budget pamphlets,” she said. “We’ll actually have them printed in good faith to give anybody who’s here. We’ll have revenues explained, expenses outlined, the tax cap levy explained, propositions explained and we’ll introduce the candidates that are running for our board (of education) and we’ll also be able to publicize what we’re doing for our budget information sessions.”

Welsh said that TLCSD was eyeing between six and eight budget information sessions.

“Anybody in the community who wants to come learn about the budget, talk about the budget, will have that opportunity,” she said.