After the Middleburgh school district's first budget was defeated at the polls by a slender margin, voters in the district passed a revised budget Tuesday. The district announced the results on Facebook:
20 likes · 0 commentsThe turnout for the budget vote on Tuesday was dramatically higher the second time around, with 1,006 people voting -- 233 more than the number of votes on May 22. In the May vote, the district's budget failed by just 25 votes, 374 to 399.
The revised budget cut $88,000 of spending, on top of $315,000 in cuts already made in the first round of budgeting, and eliminated field trips from the year's budget in addition to several non-teaching positions. The budget as currently adopted will raise the tax levy in the district by 2.68 percent over the 2012-2013 year's budget.
If the budget had failed a second time, the district would have been forced to adopt a contingency budget, with zero percent increase in the tax levy -- a situation that would have forced another $235,297 in cuts. Board of education officials told district voters that if they were forced to adopt a contingency budget, all athletics and extracurriculars would be cut.
