March 9, 2017
ARKPORT, NY – Arkport school superintendent Jesse Harper has begun the process of assembling a budget for the 2017-18 school years. Although none of the numbers are final because they still do not know what share of the pie they will be getting from the state, it does give them an insight to what expenses’ are up or down from the previous year. Once the state comes out with their budget numbers at the end of March or early April, they can have concrete numbers and finalize things.
Transportation costs seem to be the glutton in this budget increasing 28% over the 2016-17 school years. It was explained during the meeting the big reason for this jump was the purchase of two new school buses at $125,000. Also affecting this number was the possibility of merging Canaseraga into their sports programs which would at minimum create three or four extra bus runs per afternoon with added supervision costs.
According to Harper since these numbers are so large the major portion of this funding will come out of the bus reserve fund. Increasing the total cost of the new busses will be the addition of six cameras instead of the usual three and possibly the addition of air ride seats for added comfort. Other areas of the budget are as follows:
Board of Education – $78,768 to $85,168 for an 8% increase
Total Chief School Administrator – $182,688 to $161,288 for a 12% decrease
Total Finance – $173,323 to $136,538 for a 21% decrease
Total Staff – $35,833 to $36,329 for a 1% increase
Total Central Services – $751,873 to $826,552 for a 10% increase
TOTAL GENERAL SUPPORT – $1,430,831 to $1,466,275.06 FOR A 2% INCREASE
Once Albany’s final aid numbers are in you can view Arkport’s entire budget on their website at www.acs.stev.net/
