Foil: Your right to Know.
The Journal News reported the rejection of the East Ramapo Proposed Budget (1,917-1,519) and offered the following comments:
“With a history of rejecting budget plans that hike the tax levy by a fraction, East Ramapo’s voters this year rejected a budget that would have increased the tax levy by 1.99%, the same percent increase that voters narrowly rejected last year. This year’s $331.9 million budget plan would have tapped nearly $20 million from reserves. Affidavit ballots still had to be counted. There was no word Tuesday night if a re-vote would be considered.
East Ramapo, facing a fiscal cliff, is asking the state to give it a “spin-up”, basically a way to tap future aid early. With local support lagging, it makes the move more unlikely.
The average proposed spending increase in 53 districts across Putnam, Westchester and Rockland was a little over 4%.
The rejection continued a trend for the district–since the state’s property tax levy cap went into effect in 2012, East Ramapo has had by far the most budget defeats among New York’s nearly 700 school districts.”
Three board members were elected, including Eric Young-Mercer, Shimon Rose, and Moses Koth.
Suffern
The Suffern school budget passed with 2,718 yes votes. All three Board incumbents won their seats, including Jennifer Hodge (2,674), Marlo Dickman (2,506), and Darrell Frasier (2,340).
Rockland
It is significant to note that all the other school districts in the County overwhelmingly supported their schools and students. Clarkstown, Nanuet, North Rockland, Nyack, Pearl River, South Orangetown, and Suffern had minimal opposition to their proposed school budgets. The closest vote was in Clarkstown with 4,234 for and 1,623 against, with other districts reporting results like 683-10 in Nanuet, 1,451-376 in North Rockland, 1,221-291 in Nyack, 641-175 in Pearl River, and 1,648-556 in South Orangetown.
