The Annual Budget Hearing was held on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. A recording of the hearing is available on YouTube. Below is a summary of the presentation given by the Interim Superintendent, Todd Hilgendorff, followed by all of the questions asked by community members and his responses.
Presentation Summary
There are six propositions on the ballot this year:
2026-2027 Proposed School Budget/Tax Levy: The total proposed budget is $38,901,750. This is an increase of +$1,257,524 (+3.34%). The percent increase is lower than it has been in the last two years. The total tax levy is $19,716,605, which is an increase of $ 732,776 (+3.86%). The tax levy is below the allowable tax cap.
Bus Acquisition: This proposition allows the District to borrow money in the form of bonds to purchase buses. There is a well-developed bus replacement cycle established, which is how the District determines need. The five-year bond will be used to purchase six diesel buses (four large, two small) and is not to exceed $1,013,911.
Capital Reserve: This proposition allows the District to create a “savings account” for future building or capital projects.
Greenville Public Library: Money is collected by the school and approved by the voters. The budget is increasing to $45,700, which is $600 more than last year.
Rensselaerville Public Library: Money is collected by the school and approved by the voters. The budget is increasing to $31,128, which is $610 more than last year.
Board of Education Elections: Voters will elect four members to the Board of Education for the following vacancies:
Two (2) three-year terms, beginning July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2029, to fill the expired terms of Eric Herbstritt and Kelly Hubicki. These seats will be given to the two highest vote-getters.
Two (2) one-year terms, beginning May 20, 2026 to June 30, 2027, to fill the seats vacated by the resignations of James Goode Jr. and Angela Mauriello. These seats will be given to the third and fourth highest vote getters.
The candidates, in order they will appear on the ballot, are:
James Bucci
Kelly Hubicki
Patrick Wynne
Eric Herbstritt
Karen Overbaugh
Proposed Budget Expenditures
New York State requires districts to break this down into three categories: Administrative, Capital, and Program.
The Administrative Component primarily encompasses the administration and leadership within the buildings, as well as the clerical staff that support those roles. This category is increasing 2.3%. Two of the expenditures that increased the most are legal services (+8.33%), which is increasing due to projected usage increases, and public information and printing (+8.39%) because the District is shifting printing services away from the BOCES code to a non-BOCES code after learning printed materials are not aidable, and there are better pricing/products at other printers.
The Capital Component encompasses areas like debt service, facilities costs, custodial staff, and physical operating costs. This is increasing 4.79%. Expenditures within the category that increased the most are employee benefits (+7.51%) due to health insurance and prescription plans increasing 7% and 20.5% respectively. Additionally, serial bonds is increasing (+5.82%) because of bus purchases made in the past few years. The District shifted the bus purchasing cycle to maximize the amount of diesel buses on site before theState’s EV Bus Mandate prohibits the purchase of them.
The Program Component encompasses areas like the salaries and benefits of teachers, instructional materials, equipment, and BOCES programming (like off-campus CTE programs or services purchased through BOCES, like software). This component is increasing 3.16%. The highest increase within the category is contract transportation (+17.79%) which allows the District to contract with outside agencies to transport students who are in specialized placements. These services have been increasing for the past few years.
Other important points to note: The largest expense across the district is, and always will be, the salaries and benefits of employees. The equipment, materials, supplies, and textbooks budget is decreasing by $61,735. This is a decrease because of the one-time purchase of a bus lift, that will not need to be replaced for many years. Students and staff are not receiving less materials or supplies, the budget line is going back to what it was before the bus lift was purchased this year. There are four positions that are not being filled at the end of this year, one position is open (bus driver) and three are due to retirements (non-classroom teachers). Each year, the District looks at the total expenditures and the positions to see if there are any possible reductions.
Proposed Revenue
Greenville Central School District has four revenue streams.
The first is the appropriated fund balance, which is money currently in the District’s account that it is going to bring into next year to use as a revenue source.
The second revenue source is real estate taxes, which is about 50.68% of the District’s revenue. An 8 step formula is used to determine the maximum allowable tax levy amount and to set a threshold for voter approval. This year’s tax cap calculation reflects a tax levy limit of 4.17% or $19,775,455. This year, the District is proposing a tax levy increase of 3.86% or $19,716,605. This does not mean individual tax bills will increase by 3.86%, it could be more or it could be less. Factors affecting individual tax rates include properties added to or removed from the assessment rolls, and changes in assessed values or equalization rates. The District encompasses eleven towns. A change in assessed value or equalization rate in one town will affect the proportion of tax levied for that town and all other towns.
Another revenue source is State Aid, which accounts for 44.10% of revenue. There are two main categories of aid. Foundation aid is determined by a formula that is based on a variety of data for each district. Because enrollment is slightly declining, the formula shows Greenville is supposed to get less State Aid than last year. As a result, the District will be “hold harmless” to ensure it does not receive less aid than it did this year. Since the State budget is not approved yet, State Aid numbers are currently based on the Governor’s run in January. The District is projecting an approximate 2% increase in foundation aid. Each year, we get a set amount of foundation aid as a district.
The second type of aid is expense driven, which is based on how much the District spends in the State-aidable categories this year. As an example, transportation aid is calculated by how much is spent on transportation this year. Each year, the District receives a “best guess” from the State on what they think will be spent and how much will be given back in aid. Since the District has more specific local data, projections created in-house are more accurate and allow the administration to come up with a more accurate estimate. Next year, based on current numbers, there will be an estimated $580,637 increase in expense-driven aid (+3.50%).
The final type of revenue source is “local sources/other revenues” and it is expected to decrease by $30,388 or 2.62%. This is primarily due to a health insurance refund from 2019/20 that got spread out over multiple years. Next year’s refund is significantly less than what was received in the current year.
Budget Scenarios
If the budget is defeated, the Board of Education has two options: hold a second budget vote OR adopt a Contingency Budget.
The contingent budget amount is $38,519,161, which is an increase of $524,748 (1.39%) from the 2025-2026 budget. It cannot exceed the 2025-2026 Tax Levy. In this case, a reduction of $732,776 to the 2026-2027 proposed budget in planned spending and programs would be required. By New York State Law, this would include the removal of non-contingent items, such as new equipment purchases, field trips, athletics, extracurricular activities. It would also require charging for building use.
Voting Information
The polls are open on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 from 1:00pm until 9:00pm in the Scott M. Ellis Elementary School Cafeteria.
Questions from the Public
Below are all of the questions that were asked by community members. The question is in bold, and the response is below. In some cases, Hilgendorff noted that he would need to follow up with exact numbers after the hearing. In addition to following up with each community member in person, the follow-ups are italicized below.
How much State Aid did Greenville get this year?
$16,573,550 was budgeted. At this point the actual amount of State Aid is $16,806,487. A final number will not be available until after the fiscal year ends on June 30, 2026. Conservative budgeting practices resulted in additional aid. These funds will go into a capital reserve or the tax certiorari reserve.
Since we don’t have a State budget, we don’t know exactly how much State aid we’ll get. Based on what you’re hearing, do you think it will go up from the numbers presented?
We do our best to estimate expense driven aids. Foundation aid is what’s up in the air. Our best estimate - we are projecting the numbers presented. However, if we actually get less we will receive less revenue than we projected, and we will have to be cautious of how we spend money next year.
Students and teachers are at the heart of education. What does the student/teacher ratio look like compared to previous years? Are class sizes going up? Is the ratio changing? Is there a metric to show the change?
Class sizes are determined by building. Class sizes are not increasing due to the three positions that will be unfilled next year - these are non-classroom teachers. During Covid, we added a number of positions. We held on to them as long as we could to do the maximum amount of good work with those extra positions. Next year, we will be approximately where we were prior to Covid. The ratio is not drastically different because the enrollment is slowly decreasing. Actual enrollment numbers and the average number of students in general education classrooms can be found on page 3 of the Program Component Supporting Documents, which is available on the Business/Budget webpage.
How much federal aid does the District receive?
Federal aid is not factored in the budget presentation because we’re talking about the general fund. We do, however, receive federal aid in the form of title funding and entitlement grants. This is under $2 million and the majority goes to special education programming and teaching positions. The actual amount of federal aid for the 2025-26 school year was $1,122,000.
What generally goes into employee benefits?
Health insurance, prescription costs, Medicare, FICA, social security, teacher retirement system contributions and employee retirement system contributions.
What is PILOT?
It stands for Payment in Lieu of Taxes. It means that certain landowners have made agreements with the county to provide us with a separate payment, in lieu of having their property assessed at a higher amount.
When does the EV bus mandate kick in, and is there any chance the state will get rid of it?
It’s still on the books for 2027/28, which would mean the 2026/27 school year would be the last year to purchase diesel buses. There is a waiver that districts could apply for, which we did. You had to demonstrate that you’re working on an EV bus plan, but need more time to execute it. We completed a study last year that looked at our district and the capability of using EV buses. These waivers will not be reviewed until July. My hope is we get the waiver and receive a two year extension. There is no guarantee that we will, but it’s the only current option. The flip side of the mandate is that by 2035, schools can not operate any diesel buses at all. So in 2027/28 we can no longer buy diesel buses, but by 2035 we can no longer use them. The concern is that while there has been conversation about shifting the starting point, there has been no talk about pushing the 2035 date. We don’t want to push off purchasing so much that we can’t meet the 2035 deadline.
How many buses do we have?
I believe about 27. We have 40 buses at this time, which include 3 that are being sold at the end of this school year, which will reduce the fleet further. We have reduced in recent years to 3 buses. The new buses we received this past school year have had quite a few issues, and the amount of spares we have are being utilized daily. It would not be in our best interest to reduce the fleet anymore. The runs have been temporarily condensed by 5 routes, leaving the remaining routes at capacity.
How many EV buses would we have to buy, and how would we afford them?
We readjusted our bus replacement cycle to prepare for this. We would have to buy one or two EV buses in 2027/28, if we have to - meaning if the waiver doesn’t come through. Then, between 2028 and 2035 we’d have to replace our whole fleet with EV buses. Hopefully, the State listens to the concerns and makes adjustments.
What is the cost of an EV bus?
It’s more than 3 times the cost of a diesel bus - roughly $400,000. EV buses are aidable, however, it’s still a significantly increased expense.
What happens if we decide to ignore the mandate and not purchase the EV buses? In general if there are other mandates aside from the EV bus mandate and the District decides not to follow. What happens? Do we get fined? Do we lose on aid?
For us to be able to do what we need to do, like purchase EV buses and install infrastructure to charge them, there would need to be voter approval. Voters could put their voices and come out to vote when the time comes if they don’t want the District to purchase EV buses. Both of these scenarios, infrastructure creation and bus purchases being voted down, have been brought to the State, but there is still not a clear, defined answer. In the short term, they might extend the waiver longer, but it doesn’t mean the waiver will be in place longer.
The threat tends to be that if we don’t follow a mandate, we lose out on aid. In the case of EV buses, we would not receive transportation aid. If we do not follow mandates, the State has the power to withhold our aid and that is a main concern with going against mandates.