School taxes would increase by about 6.5 percent under a preliminary budget presented Monday by Scotia-Glenville Superintendent Susan Swartz.

The district unveiled a $42.1 million budget, an increase of $2.1 million — or 5.2 percent — over this year’s budget. The Board of Education will review the proposal in a series of workshops with a proposal adopted for a public vote by April 12.

Voters will be asked to approve the budget on May 16.

Voters will also choose two new members of the Board of Education. Veteran board members Karen Bradley and John Carpenter — each finishing out a 12 th year in office — have announced that they will not run for a fifth term.

Bradley said she is stepping down from office to aid her aging parents and in-laws.

Carpenter said he simply feels it is time to "pass the torch."

The board invited interested residents to run for the school board. Candidates must gather 59 signatures on a petition to appear on the district ballot. Petitions are available at the district business office and must be returned by April 17.

Monday’s budget presentation was held in conjunction with a review of the district’s long-term plan, which is driving most of the changes in this year’s budget, Swartz said. "The long-range plan is the superintendent’s budget," Swartz said.

In the current year, a taxpayer with an average home assessed at $100,000 pays a school tax bill of about $2,914. A carryover budget with no new programs would cost the district $41.6 million, an increase of about $1.6 million or 3.9 percent.

The superintendent’s budget is about $500,000 more than the carryover budget, but details on where that money would be spent were not available Monday.

The presentation on the long-range plan did offer some clues as to changes that are in consideration.

Among the changes:

At the elementary level, the district recommends an additional reading teacher for the Glendaal and Glen Worden elementary schools to even out the reading resources shared by the four elementary schools in the district.
The district would hire two teaching assistants for the computer labs to be shared between the four elementary schools.
The capacity of Young Scholars, the district’s gifted program, would be increased slightly in grades four and five.
And grant funding would support a new "lead teacher" position to coordinate teaching between special education and general education, promote best practices, and collect and analyze data.

At the middle schools level, the district recommends that daily foreign language instruction be phased in during seventh grade. To accommodate the change in schedule, the health program would be moved from grade seven to six.
The district would add an option for studio art in the eighth grade, using an instructor from the high school at no additional cost.
Young Scholars would be expanded to serve the sixth grade, with a half-day of BOCES-led instruction complimenting an existing accelerated program in math and science for that grade level.
The seventh grade would get an English Language Arts honors class, a change that would not impact the budget.
The district would expand the hours of its social workers, and use a grant to partially fund a teaching assistant for all grades in the middle school.

In the high school, the district would like to increase staff in its ninth- and tenth-grade program for struggling students and expand capacity in its "Life Skills Program" from nine to 12 students.

Districtwide, the plan calls for reducing the teaching load of academic heads, to allow increased supervision of younger staff and improved analysis of state tests.
And the district hopes to hire a technology director, a cost offset by discontinuing the services of a BOCES technology assistant.