SALAMANCA — Salamanca City Central School officials received the latest look at preparations for the 2025–26 district budget, including about $59.69 million in spending with no change to the tax levy, but that final total may change.

Karen Magara, Assistant Superintendent for Finances and Operations, said there is still work to be done before the Board of Education approves the tentative budget that will be presented to voters in May. Regardless, the tax levy will again remain flat at $250,000.

Karen Magara

The potential budget is up about 3% from the current $57.99 million spending plan. About $2.16 million of that increase is going toward instructional costs, including “anything and everything teaching related,” Magara said.

Much of that increase is going toward students with disabilities programming — about a $1.9 million increase — which Dr. Mark Beehler, Superintendent of Schools, said is due in part to overall special education numbers being up as more students are being referred to classification as well as more students moving into the district who are already classified for special ed.

“The other piece here is that there is regionally a shortage of teachers with the special education certification,” he continued. “A lot of times, we would be able to send some of these students to a BOCES program, and right now, their program isn’t available. So we’re having to pay very high costs for online instruction and other forms of supplemental instruction to meet their learning needs because regionally, we just don’t have enough teachers.”

Jerry Parisi, Director of Special Education, reiterated what the superintendent said, noting that the tuition and limited services are $120,000 per student. Additionally, Beehler said there are also significant teacher and administrative costs associated with special education programming.

“There are resources that we’re happy to provide, but we have to recognize those are very costly,” he added.

The administrative portion of the budget is looking to increase by about $219,000 to $4.21 million, while the capital budget — including facilities, security and transportation expenses — could decrease by about $310,000 down to $7.2 million. Also in the expenses, about $15.54 million goes toward employee benefits, debt services and interfund transfers.

Revenues include state aid at around $32 million; Impact Aid at about $12.7 million, but may change, Magara said; Indigenous Tuition/Transportation at $9.25 million; fund balance and reserves at $3.79 million; miscellaneous at $1.6 million and taxes at $251,200, including the $250,000 tax levy.

“That number will fluctuate depending on where we end up for the total budget number,” Magara said regarding Impact Aid. “If we need more money, that will grow. If we don’t, it will shrink.”

At this point, Magara said there are several increases she knows will have to be built into the budget, including an estimated 15–19% increase to property and liability insurance; salary increases for various positions and unions; and benefits increases to workers compensation, retirements and health insurance. The workers comp increase — nearly 20% — was the highest among area districts, she said, due to a lot of trip, slip and fall incidents over the past couple of years.

“We have one clerical person retiring this year,” Magara said. “That’s the lowest amount of retirees we’ve had in the 16 years I’ve been doing this.”

Still unknown as of March 26 are the final state aid figures, the Salamanca Administrative and Supervisory Association (SASA) contract settlement costs and three confidential managerial contract settlement costs.

Board member Kerry John said that a lot of the increases to the budget are in necessary lines, asking what that will mean for a lot of the optional programs that the district officers. Magara said that’s what the district needs to look at next to figure out what can continue to be offered and what may need to be cut back, which she said depends on the final total budget to be approved.

“The budget that was presented tonight is very lean compared to where we have been,” Beehler said. “There’s a lot of things that we’re used to that aren’t currently included that we want to see if we can get back in there.”

Board President Theresa Ray requested that the school board see a list of what is being taken out for a leaner budget and what the district is losing in order to make a good decision.

IN OTHER NEWS, the Salamanca school district was presented the Western New York Family Engagement Award, recognizing its work with family engagement strategies and opportunities.

Presented by the Care Management Coalition of Western New York, it was one of three awards announced at the fifth annual Western New York Family Engagement Conference in February. Dr. Kristen Dudek, the district’s Chief of Student Supports and Information, said Salamanca was honored for the work of its family liaisons, grant writers and district staff has done to encourage families to become engaged — not only in academics but in any way that makes them feel a part of the greater community.

“We were honored out of all of the districts across Western New York to receive this award from the coalition,” she said. “We look forward to working with the coalition on future performances and future opportunities, to have our staff attend anything that they might have that will help with further family engagement.

Beehler said the district received the Western New York Family Engagement Award largely due to Dudek and her team.