Lansing voters approve $39.7M school budget

Lansing voters approved the Lansing Central School District (LCSD) budget for the 2025-2026 school year, with 64.2% of the vote in favor of the $39.7 million spending plan. 

The district’s budget for next school year calls for $39,695,625 in spending and sets a tax rate of $17.92 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The expenditures represent a 2.9% increase over last year’s $38.6 million budget.

Voters also approved the district’s transportation proposal, dubbed Proposition 2 on the ballot, with almost 72% of the vote in favor. 

The proposition enables the district to spend up to $385,000 on replacements to school buses and other transportation options available to students. 

Two LCSD Board of Education members were also reelected. Susan Tabrizi and Matt Hektor both got more than 700 votes each. Voters could choose two candidates for the two seats up for grabs. Candidate Dave Hatfield garnered 602 votes. 

“Thank you, Lansing,” Tabrizi said in a social media post. “I am grateful for your dedication to our kids and our school. We all share the same drive to do what is best for our community. Thank you to Matthew Hektor and Dave Hatfield for your service to our community. Now, let’s go back to work.”

According to a PowerPoint presentation on the district’s website, LCSD’s budget includes reductions to the following positions in the district:

• A teacher
• Reduction of an 8:1:1 classroom at Lansing Middle School. These are classrooms with no more than eight students per class, with a full-time special education teacher and one full-time paraprofessional. These classrooms serve students whose management needs are severe and chronic, requiring intensive, constant supervision, a significant degree of individualized attention, intervention and intensive behavior management as well as additional adult support, according to the United Federation of Teachers website.
• A fifth-grade teacher
• A teaching assistant
• A school monitor
• A groundskeeper
• Materials, supplies and equipment
• Conferences
• Field trips
• Cutbacks to curriculum writing
• A multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) teaching assistant, who helps with the implementation of student support and intervention programs

The budget priorities set by the district at a May 12 public hearing include:

• Keeping money in the classroom by prioritizing instructional staff. LCSD invests about 42% of its operating expenditures on instructional staff.
• Instructional support services receive approximately 10% of the operating budget to fund essential guidance, health and operational support for students and staff.
• Safely transporting students comprises about 3.58% of the budget.

LCSD Assistant Superintendent of Business Administration Kathryn Heath said that spending for next year’s budget has been kept under the consumer price index (CPI) number of 2.95%, a metric that is used to measure inflation.

“We’re typically right around the CPI, depending on what the needs are for the district,” Heath said at the April 23 LCSD Board of Education meeting. 

Heath also reviewed key takeaways from the budget process. 

“We’re maintaining our programmatic needs,” she said. “We do have contractual obligations. Those are our bargained agreements, so salary, benefits and our debt service — those are what we’re required to pay no matter what our budget comes in at.”

The largest amount of revenue for the district saw an uptick for this budget cycle. LCSD received $12.5 million in state educational aid, an uptick of $381,381 from last year’s $12.1 million allocation 

Lansing at Large appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com. Contact Eddie Velazquez at edvel37@gmail.com.

In brief:

The Book Club for Adults meetup for June will take place June 17. The club, which meets at the Lansing Community library once a month from 7 to 8 p.m., is reading Stanley Tucci’s memoir “Taste: My Life Through Food.”

“This witty memoir weaves together personal stories and Tucci’s deep love of food, offering a flavorful look at the moments that shaped his life and career,” states a post on the library’s website. “All are welcome — come ready for great conversation!”

Copies are available at the circulation desk at the library and ready for pickup.

More on the book: 

Tucci, from the city of Peekskill in Westchester County,  revealed in September of 2021 he had been diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer three years earlier. He had received treatment (chemotherapy and radiation) after a tumor was found at the base of his tongue, and he said it was unlikely that the tumor would return. “Taste” describes his encounter with cancer and his love of food. In 2022, he said there are still some foods he cannot eat, as a result of his cancer.