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Voters decide school budgets, board members on Tuesday

Voters in suburban school districts go to the polls Tuesday to vote on school budgets and school board members.

Sherry Johnson, executive director of the Monroe County School Boards Association, says this is a very important vote for a number of reasons.

“It’s the only budget, directly, that our citizens get to vote on,” she said. “Every other budget is approved by a board.  And this one, the taxpayers get to go, and I think they would want to know as much as they could, especially when it’s impacting kids.”

Johnson says these are spending plans that school boards have been working diligently on since the fall to make sure children in the districts have what they need to succeed.

She also points out, regardless of a community’s wealth, the state’s tax cap -- the lesser of 2 percent or the rate of inflation -- supersedes what a district can raise from property taxes.

But in the Brighton Central School District, voters will decide whether to override the state’s tax cap, which will need a 60 percent supermajority to approve.

Johnson says we can likely expect more districts to do the same in the future.

“As the tax cap becomes permanent and our schools continue to be pinched both by state aid impacts and not being able to raise that wealth from their local communities, I believe, and this is my personal opinion, I believe you’re going to see more of that,” she said. “More people trying to exceed the tax cap, without any flexibilities.”

Here’s a link to the Monroe County School Boards Association website which has links to 21 local suburban districts, outlining voting times and poll locations.