Letter to the Editor: Thursday, May 15, 2025

Vote ‘No’ on Webutuck school budget

The Webutuck BOE proposes the 2025-2026 School budget increase 5.95%, which is more than twice the Consumer Price Index (2.95%), according to their Spring 2025 Spring Newsletter.

The Newsletter curiously is silent on student enrollment. A search online on NYS Education Department statistics reveals the latest K-12 total (2023-2024) enrollment for Webutuck as 637. The proposed ’25-’26 budget ($28,665,850), divided by 637, is a whopping $45,001 per student.

The Newsletter curiously is also silent on student performance. The results of the *Spring* 2024 standardized tests in math and reading were buried in the Millerton News just before Christmas. The performance was abysmal — not quite as bad as Baltimore — but horrible, attributable by inference in the story to the more than one-third non-English speaking student body.

The Newsletter’s most egregious misrepresentation, however, is the statement by the Superintendent that the local tax levy (5.27%), “at the allowable levy limit set by NYS,” is “fiscally conservative.” That is intellectually dishonest. It is patently obvious — in fact, it is stated twice by the Superintendent within the Newsletter — that the *goal* of the proposed budget was to increase the budget as much as possible, yet stay within the “allowable limit set by NYS” in order to enable qualified homeowners to be eligible for NYS STAR tax relief. The goal should be to present a budget that is limited to what is essential and necessary and targeted to need, *not* to reflexively increase it to an “allowable limit set forth by the State.”

The School Board and Superintendent need to turn their attention to cutting administrative and academic bloat and to improving student performance by addressing the problems it has with illiteracy and innumeracy among its substantial non-English speaking student body.

Rejection of this proposed school budget will result in a Contingency Budget which is still an increase of 2.36% over last year’s budget and more in line with the CPI. I recommend taxpayers send a message: Take the trouble to vote NO on Tuesday, May 20th, at the High School!

Dan Brown

Millerton