NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Schools districts here in Western New York and across the state are now seeking their local board approval before they put their proposed budgets for the 2026-27 year up for the voters in May.
And in Niagara Falls, soon to retire School Superintendent Mark Laurrie says this final budget for him has been the most difficult of his career with significant challenges including another late state budget.
Here’s an excerpt from a Niagara Falls school board meeting last week as Supt. Laurrie says: “This is the toughest one; this is my 11th budget and actually it is the toughest one.”
Laurrie was laying out their situation with the largest budget gap he has ever faced. He says revenues of just over $202 million dollars will not match expected budget expenses of just over $211 million dollars for that gap of just over $9 million dollars.
So how to cover that? One revenue option is off the table as a relief to taxpayers who actually vote on the district budget on May 19th.
Laurrie explains, “Niagara Falls is not a place where we like to raise the tax levy and haven’t done so in 14 years because even raising the tax levy to the limit that we could would only generate about $580,000. And in a city that you know is not really tax rich in terms of the residents.”
So instead he proposed to the school board a combination of using $8 million dollars in reserve funds and then an anticipated $2 million dollars in both retirements and unfilled staff vacancies. He warns that they cannot keep using those rainy day funds in future years but it will get through for this year.
Laurrie says that budget gap is due to rising costs of at least 4% for just about everything from school district utilities to salaries and healthcare.
But like other years there is also lingering uncertainty with a flat $5.1 million in Title 1 federal funding and then of course yet another state education funding question with the late state budget in Albany.
A fifth budget extender to keep state government in operation was approved in Albany on Monday
Governor Kathy Hochul was asked while here in Buffalo if a budget will be worked out soon. She replied, “I’m not gonna say whether something is the last extender. I’ve been hoping we were done since April 1st. But I also am not walking back from my belief in the priorities that New Yorkers deserve to have.”
So it does not sound like there is any urgency for budget passage.
The Re-Invent Albany government watchdog group weighed in as Executive Director John Kaehny told 2 On Your Side, “It makes it harder to know if you can hire new teachers or not for next season and to just do basic competent management.”
Laurrie added, “It’s just really not fair to the school districts, students, and taxpayers.”
Laurrie points out there are upcoming school staff labor contract negotiations in the coming years which also present a cost challenge.
Then there are new graduation requirements which he feels are good but which come with higher costs. Finally also throw in the cost of the state mandate for electric school bus conversion even though there are now some waivers for districts because of the extra cost for those new buses and new charging stations in bus garages requiring utility upgrades.
