ITHACA, N.Y. — Following pushback from taxpayers, the Ithaca City School District Board of Education rejected the district’s 2024-2025 school year budget proposal at its meeting late Tuesday night. Instead, the board approved an alternative budget that would cut total spending by roughly $2 million.
After a lengthy discussion that followed a packed and oppositional public comment period, board members voted down the district’s initial figure of $170,935,371.
An alternate budget proposal totaling $168,935,371 was introduced by board members during the meeting, representing a $2 million reduction from the district’s proposed budget, which the board approved 8-1.
Board members also opted to use an additional $2 million from the district’s fund balance reserves for a total of $4 million in cuts to the district’s tax levy, or the amount of money the district raises through property taxes. It amounts to a roughly 3% cut to the initially proposed tax levy — as a result, the approved budget contains a $4 million reduction in tax levy, which now stands at $116,785,440 under the approved conditions.
That is an 8.42% levy increase from last year, compared to a 12.14% increase from the originally proposed budget.
In the new proposal, the district’s tax rate would fall from $16.22 per $1,000 in assessed value in 2023-2024 to $15.68 in 2024-2025, though individual property taxes are still likely to rise due to the levy increase and rising assessment values.
While board members have settled on a final number, district leaders must hammer out the details of the new budget by the state’s deadline of April 26. ICSD Chief Operating Officer Amanda Verba said the budget is due to be submitted to the state by April 29.
Dozens turned out to speak against the initially proposed budget, which has been in development for months. Almost universally, those in opposition at the meeting were fueled by anger over the resulting property taxes the budget would induce.
The group argued the district has a responsibility to control its spending to alleviate the tax burden on people living within the district in the face of this year’s skyrocketing property assessments. On that note, board member Moira Lang later lamented that New York’s method of funding school district budgets through property taxes is “terrible,” to applause from the crowd of audience members.
The changed budget does not impact the May 21 referendum date for district residents, who can still vote to approve or reject the $168.9 million budget. Even with the overall reductions, the budget still exceeds the year-over-year tax increase cap, meaning the budget needs to pass with 60% of voters in support.
The board settled on the proposed $2 million reduction after briefly discussing an alternate plan that included $6 million in cuts. All members were concerned with what the budget reduction would cause for “student-facing professionals” like teachers and counselors.
ICSD Superintendent Luvelle Brown said district leaders didn’t have the opportunity to prepare information for a different budget before the meeting, and felt that giving concrete answers on its impact on the district would be “naive and inappropriate.”
But Brown said regardless of the size, any reduction would mean that “every aspect of the organization would be significantly impacted.” He spoke hypothetically about the impacts a $6 million cut would have on the district, but did not detail impacts that the $2 million cut that was eventually approved would have.
Brown said the cuts would result in a likely increase in class sizes from the current average of 17 students throughout the district.
He said the district would prioritize cutting administration positions, pointing to associate principal positions in each district building as something the district would probably have to lose or “move away from” in the future.
“I’m just targeting the things we have added over the last four years to enhance our offerings,” Brown said. “I would say that would be on the table to think about, if those are the first things we shift away from, for the folks who are listening. I’m not saying these would be the things we’re cutting, to not be concrete, but we would look at that.”
Brown also said the district’s efforts to enhance the athletic department, increased special education and social worker positions, and recently introduced reading programs that require new materials and professional development would all “be looked at.”
“This is not to alarm folks, but as an instructional leader who’s gone through this in multiple states and multiple school districts, it gets real real fast,” Brown said. “These are real people.”
Board member Jill Tripp, one of the architects of the $6 million reduction proposal, acknowledged that whatever reduced path the board chose, there would be repercussions.
“What we need to look at is how much pain we want to cause for how much savings,” Tripp said.
Board member Eldred Harris was staunchly opposed to reducing the budget, arguing that it would send a muddled message to district leadership and the community compared to the board’s last few years of decision-making.
Harris asked board members to consider the impact of the cuts, given the additional load schools have taken on since the pandemic, like providing more extensive counseling and special education services.
“What’s really the option?” Harris said. “We continue to let this district reduce its investment in our children, we will have more kids not graduating, we will not be able to defeat the next attempted jail expansion, we will have more homelessness in our community, we will have more crime, because damn it, somebody has to provide services to our kids.”
Harris posited that of the three primary local taxing entities, meaning the City of Ithaca, Tompkins County and ICSD, the district is the only one “dedicated to increasing our level of services for our constituents.”
Earlier Tuesday, the Ithaca Teachers Association had distributed a message to all its members asking for them to show up and speak in support of the budget, which includes a promised 20% wage increase for all teachers over the next three years.
Only one teacher, Valerie Evans, appeared during public comment, defending the budget and the district for its emphasis on equity and inclusion. Evans told those opposed that their ire was misdirected.
“If you all want to march up the hill [to Cornell] and protest against them, I’m with you,” Evans said. “They’re the people that drive the property taxes up. They’re the people that don’t pay their fair share.”
Evans was the lone person to speak in favor of the district’s proposed budget. On Wednesday, the Ithaca Teachers Association’s leadership sent a statement to The Ithaca Voice urging voters to approve the revised budget at the May 21 election. The union thanked board members who had formulated alternative budgets with the goal of avoiding reductions to classroom staffers.
“The entire Ithaca community wants the same thing: high quality schools that do an exceptional job of educating our incredibly diverse student population,” the statement reads. “We understand that this is an expensive thing to ask from our community. But the negative effects of a defeated budget would have dire consequences for our students and educational programs.”
Andrea Torrado, another community member who spoke against the originally proposed budget, said this was her first time opposing the district’s financial wishes.
“I understand how much the schools have taken on in caring for our needy children,” Torrado said. “I understand that comes with a lot of money that needs to be applied to that task. […] I have supported this budget year-in and year-out, unquestionably, but this year is too much.”
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