Hamburg School Board approves budget for 2024-25 school year

Hamburg, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Hamburg School Board has voted to approve a proposed school budget worth just under $84 million for the 2024-25 school year on Tuesday during a special board meeting at the district's administration offices.

The 2024-25 school budget stays within the New York State Tax Levy Limit with an increase of 2.96%, and will maintain all pre-K-12 programs including classes, clubs, intramurals and sports. However, the budget will see 20 staff and faculty members across the district laid off, along with a shifting of other teachers and staff to different grades.

The vote was unanimously passed by members of the School Board, and the budget will now go up for vote amongst the community members of the district on May 21.

"Last Friday, the New York State Legislature and the Governer passed and signed the '24-25 budget. In doing so, the provided school districts with important state aid information necessary to pass our local school district budgets," said Hamburg Superintendent Michael Cornell in a statement.

"The Hamburg School District Budget of $83,911,292 was adopted by the Board of Edication this morning, and will be placed on the ballot for voter approval on May 21. This budget represents a budget-to-budget increase of less than 1% over the '23-24 budget, while maintaining our academic programs, sports, clubs and visual and performing arts."

Even with the early board meeting scheduled on Tuesday, a number of concerned parents of the district showed up to the budget vote, and continued to voice their disappointment with the actions of the School Board surrounding the budget.

"The alternatives did exist, so we're upset how we got here, and we're upset with the decisions that they made today," said Kelly Brehm, who has two students currently in the district.

"We have reached out to them again-and-again, we have been met with silence," added Ashley Rapsinski, who has one child currently in the district. "When the community is calling for transparency and they hold the meeting today at 8:15 a.m. to adopt the controversial budget, it missed the mark on the transparency, which is what the community has been craving."

Jessica Reyna, President of the Hamburg Central PTSA, says the news of Tuesday morning's meeting was upsetting, but not too surprising.

"At this point, I don't think they necessarily want to hear the feedback. I think they're tired of the feedback. They are hearing a lot of the same things, but these are really valid points. So we're trying to stress to them that you can make a change, you can do this," said Reyna on Tuesday following the special meeting. "I would assume a lot of those board members have jobs they need to be at. I know we all have kids that need to be in school and have jobs we need to get to, but we had to shift things around because it's important to be here, and it's important to speak on behalf of the thousands of kids who attend school at HCSD."

Cornell says special meetings like this on Tuesday have consistently been held during the early morning hours since he's been in office dating back nearly 10 years ago.

With the upcoming budget vote amongst the public in the district on May 21, concern still looms that the budget could be voted down, resulting in the adoption of a contingency vote that could that mean even more significant staffing cuts than this budget would see.

Parents of the district understand how devastating a contingency budget could be to the Hamburg district.

"If we went to contingency, I honestly don't know how we would recover. The budget passing is a must, because we cannot afford any more layoffs, we can't afford any more cuts," Reyna said. "But I think it's really upsetting that we are asking for options, we are pleading with the people who we've elected, and who they've decided is the best or service to find other ways, and they haven't done that. And to now say, 'We are not changing it, this is what you get if you vote it down, then more cuts will come,' I feel like they are really playing a game with people's lives."

"I feel disappointed they haven't given us any transparency on how they made these decisions. We've asked again-and-again about student impact studies on what it's going to look like for next year with who's being cut, how they plan to staff things, and we've been met with, 'We're going to figure it out.' I understand they can't tell us who's going to be in which positions, but we should know how many of each position we need in order to serve our students, and make sure that our numbers align with other districts, because that's the data they're using to support why there's no cuts anywhere else. But they can't give us the numbers on how that works for our students and our teachers in the classrooms," Rapsinski added.

Despite the proposed staffing cuts with the 2024-25 school budget, parents like Reyna and Rapsinski will not give up efforts to bring back staff that's essential to their children's success in school.

"I have a kindergartener, my youngest is in kindergarten. I'm going to be in this district for a decade-plus at this point. I will never say it's a lost cause, and I will always work on behalf of my kids. And when I say my kids, I don't just mean my four. I work on behalf of all of the kids in this district every day," Reyna said. "We're gonna keep coming back asking questions. What does next year look like? How do we bring these last positions back? These positions are vital to our children, and even though we're losing them right now with the budget that was adopted today that the community does not believe in, it doesn't mean moving forward, we don't want to work together to bring these positions back."

"We have a wonderful school district. We are passionate parents, because we love our schools. We love our teachers, we want our students to be here. We chose this place for them, so we do want to work with them. We have been showing up, we have been trying," Rapsinski also stated. "I think getting some fresh faces on the school board and showing they can work together, and there are people willing to consider these things is ever so important. It came to us that a lot of us are willing to talk the talk, and are we willing to walk the walk? I am running for School Board, because I want to work with them, I want to work to improve this. I really hope the public will vote yes to the budget, and put their faith back into the district as we move forward."