Category: Whitehall

Just recently, school district “report cards” were released for the 2011-2012 school year. (Last year’s school year.) This is the last publicly available information on enrollment. So the most up to date information is for the LAST school year.

Numbers for the current school year (2012-2013) and projections for next year (2013-2014) are not currently available and are only released after budgeting is done for that year. I’d like to see projections for the following year’s enrollment be released as part of the budgeting process for that year but that’s another issue. However as readers of the Huletts Current already know, enrollment has been falling in the Whitehall School District (and is projected to continue to fall) while property taxes have increased over the same period. This is an update to my yearly enrollment table reflecting the most recently released enrollment numbers. When people talk to me about the Huletts Current, I get many positive comments about the coverage of this issue.

The table illustrates that there has been an overall drop in total enrollment of 16.15% during the last eight years. Enrollment has declined every year during that time.

However the problem still remains, the population of New York continues to migrate to other states. This phenomenon can be seen clearly in Whitehall, where the local tax base is not conducive to attracting residents or business investment.

While the state has cut back on it’s share of aid to the district, the falling enrollment has not amounted to any cuts in property taxes. Losing 143 students over an eight year period has resulted in no property tax savings for the local property taxpayers. Hence, a spiraling decline in enrollment never results in lower property taxes, fueling the falling enrollment.

Governor Coumo’s proposed 2013-2014 state budget calls for a 4.4% increase in state aid to school districts. However the proposed increase is not uniform for all districts. The Whitehall School District is presently slated to receive a 3.8% increase.

The state aid figures are not final until the state legislature adopts the budget. Until that happens, the amounts proposed by the Governor are tentative only.

State law limits local property tax increases to 2%, although that amount can go higher with 60% approval by the voters.

The Whitehall School District has hemorrhaged enrollment over the past decade. The enrollment for years 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 is included in the school district’s report card. That information is not publically available as of this date.

See the Whitehall School District’s share of state aid under the Governor’s proposed 2013-2014 budget.

Legal Notice
Whitehall Central School District
Notice of Capital Project & School Bus Purchase

NOTICE IS GIVEN that a special meeting of the qualified voters of the Whitehall Central School District, Washington County, New York, will be held in the Large Group Instruction Room in the Junior-Senior High School Building on Buckley Road in the Town of Whitehall, New York, on January 23, 2013, between the hours of 12:00 o’clock noon (E.S.T) and 8:00 o’clock P.M. (E.S.T) during which hours the polls will be opened to vote by voting machines upon the following items:

Proposition # 1

RESOLVED:

That the Board of Education of the Whitehall Central School District is hereby authorized to remove and replace the existing Swimming Pool Roof and the existing Cafeteria Roof of the Jr-Sr. High School building located on Buckley Road in the Town of Whitehall at a cost not to exceed the sum of $240,000 and to appropriate from the unreserved portion of the School District’s General Fund Balance the sum of $240,000 for the cost or so much therefore as may be necessary for such purpose.

Proposition # 2

RESOLVED:

That the Board of Education of the Whitehall Central School District is hereby authorized to purchase one (1) forty-one (41) passenger school bus and one (1) sixty-five (65) passenger school bus for the use by the School District, at a cost not to exceed the sum of $220,000 and to appropriate from the unreserved portion of the School District’s General Fund Balance the sum of $220,000 for the cost or so much therefore as may be necessary for such purpose.

By order of the Board of Education,
Martha P. Bascue
School Districk Clerk

Shuttered and ‘for sale’ businesses dot Whitehall.

Changes in the equalization rates between the five towns that comprise the Whitehall School District will result in changes to the school tax rate that property owners in each of the five towns will pay this upcoming year. School tax bills are traditionally mailed out around this time of year.

The tax rate will increase approximately 7.4 percent in Granville, 5.3 percent in Hampton and Fort Ann, and 5.2 percent in Whitehall. The tax rate in Dresden will actually decrease by 1.1 percent.

How’s that you may ask? You heard that the school budget increased about 2 percent from last year, so why aren’t taxes increasing uniformly by 2 percent? Well, because the property values in each town are set by a local assessor at different percentages of market value, the state has a formula known as the “equalization rate” to equalize taxes across different taxing jurisdictions. One of the reasons Dresden’s share will decrease this year is that some property in the town has sold recently for less than what the state deems the “market value.” Dresden has also increased its tax base, allowing the total taxes for the town to be spread over a wider base.

I would opine that the equalization rate for some time has inflated Dresden property values, so this year the never-ending spending increases of the school district are being felt more acutely in the other towns that comprise the district. Property owners in Dresden are actually getting a break this year because New York’s formula recognizes that the assessed value of Dresden property is too high in relation to the other towns that comprise the school district.