25 Van Rensselaer Dr. , Rensselaer, NY 12144 Phone:(518) 436-8561 Fax: (518) 436-8563

Contingency Budget

What is a contingency or austerity budget?

A contingency or austerity budget is prepared and adopted by the school board when the board’s proposed budget is rejected by the voters.  The contingency budget funds only teachers’ salaries and those items the board determines constitute “ordinary contingent expenses.”

What items constitute “ordinary contingent expenses”?

A contingency budget may include only ordinary contingent expenses which have been defined to include pre-existing legal obligations, expenditures specifically authorized by statute and other items necessary to maintain the education program, preserve property and assure the health and safety of students and staff.

What are some examples of ordinary contingent expenses?

Although section 2023 of the Education Law specifically enumerates several items that constitute ordinary contingent expenses, Formal Opinion of Counsel No. 213, 7 Educ. Dep’t Rep. 153 (1967) illustrates items deemed to be ordinary contingent expenses for purposes of a school district budget.  They include:

1. Legal Expenses

• Debt Service – interest and principal.

• Judgments from courts and orders of the Commissioner of Education.

• Other legal obligations, including Social Security and other payroll taxes and assessments and preexisting contractual obligations.

2. Expenditures specifically authorized by statute.

• Interschool athletics, field trips, and other extracurricular activities.

• Transportation (elementary students: 2-15 miles, secondary students: 3-15 miles, and children with disabilities: up to 50 miles.)

• Textbooks for grades 7-12.

• Supplies for sale, rental or loan to students.

• Expenses in connection with membership in the New York State School Boards Association, Inc.

• Convention and conference expenses.

• The District’s share of BOCES services.

• Health services.

• Private, federal or state donations not involving expenditure of local money.

• Pre-Kindergarten, if the board chooses to offer a pre-kindergarten program.

• Interscholastic sports.

• Field trips.

• Kindergarten, if the board chooses to offer a kindergarten program.

• Accident insurance for students.

• In-service training for teachers.

• Eye safety devices.

• Library books and other instructional material for a school library.

3. Other items necessary to maintain the educational program, preserve property and assure the health and safety of students and staff.  The following is a partial list:

• Necessary travel expenses of board members and employees on official business.

• Amount needed to pay for necessary legal expense.

• Instructional supplies for teachers’ use (regardless of program).

• Salaries for necessary number of non-teaching employees.

• Utilities, including fuel, water, light and power, and telephone.

• Use of school buildings for teachers’ meetings and PTA meetings with school connected purposes.

• Emergency repairs of school plant.

• Maintenance of necessary, sanitary facilities.

• Necessary expenditures for complying with the commissioner’s regulations pertaining to such items as fire alarm systems and fire escapes.

• Temporary rental of essential classroom facilities.

• Required civil defense equipment.

• Certain expenses, such as for emergency repairs, or to equip a classroom or classrooms where it is essential to house additional students.

• Materials used in classes by students where uniformity is essential to the program or to preserve health and safety.

• Newspapers and periodical subscriptions for libraries and classroom use where essential for instruction or to preserve continuity of sets.

• Expenditures necessary to advise district voters concerning school matters.

• Preliminary plans and specifications needed to submit propositions to voters.

• Staff necessary to the operation of the district.

What are some examples of non-contingent expense items?

Examples of non-contingent budget expenses include:

1. Salary increases for non-instructional, non-unionized employees (i.e. management and/or confidential employees).

2. New equipment, such as school buses.

3. Public use of school buildings and grounds except where there is no cost to the district.

4. Nonessential maintenance.

5. Capital expenditures, except in an emergency.

6. Budget support of school lunch programs.

What limits are imposed on contingency budgets?

Contingency budgets may not result in a percentage increase in total spending over the district’s total spending under the district budget for the prior year that exceeds 120 percent of the consumer price index (CPI), or 4 percent, whichever is less.  However, the following types of expenditures must be excluded in determining total spending:

1. Expenditures resulting from a tax certiorari proceeding.
2. Expenditures resulting from a court order or judgment against the school district.
3. Emergency expenditures that are certified by the commissioner of education as necessary as a result of damage to, or destruction of, a school building or school equipment.
4. Capital expenditures resulting from the construction, acquisition, reconstruction, rehabilitation or improvement of school facilities, including debt services and lease expenditures, subject to voter approval.
5. Expenditures attributable to projected increases in public school enrollment, which may include increases attributable to students attending pre-kindergarten programs established in accordance with section 3602-e of the Education Law, to be computed based upon an increase in enrollment from the previous year to the year for which the budget is being adopted, provided where the school board has documented evidence that a further increase in enrollment will occur during the school year for which the contingency budget is prepared because of new construction, inception of a pre-kindergarten program, growth or similar factors, the expenditures attributable to such additional enrollment may be disregarded.
6. Non-recurring expenditures in the prior year’s school budget (Educ. Law §2023(4)(a), (b)).