What if the school budget doesn't pass

001Hi everybody, Brendan Cardi from the Cornwall Board of Education. Every year people wonder what would happen if the school budget didn't pass. So let me explain. In the event of a no vote, the board of education would have two choices. First, it could hold the second vote, either amending the current budget or just putting the same budget up again. Or second, it could go straight to adopting what's called a contingency budget. A contingency budget would need to have the same tax levy as last year's budget. In order to do that, the board would have to cut just over $1.4 million from this year's proposed budget to make it fit. Now, that doesn't mean that this year's budget has $1.4 million in new spending. Actually, new positions and expenses only account for around $270,000 from this year's proposed budget. The rest, about $1.2 $2 million is due to the year-over-year increases in things like salaries, transportation costs, insurance, utilities, etc. All the expenses that the district needs to cover to keep running that tend to increase from year to year. So to cut over $1.4 million in our budget, we wouldn't just be going back to last year's programming. We would have to cut about $1.2 million from last year's programming as well. This would have an unavoidable impact on every aspect of our district, academics, staff, arts, athletics. There's just no way to find that kind of savings without touching those essential categories. So, that's what would happen if the budget didn't pass. Thanks for watching and remember to vote next Tuesday, May 20th, at Cornwall Central Middle School.