School budgets were approved in most area districts on Tuesday night. One exception was in the Geneva City School District. The spending plan there saw 676 yes votes and 490 opposed.
But because the budget, with a tax rate hike of just under two percent exceeded the tax cap under a state formula, a "supermajority" of a 60 percent "yes" vote would have been needed for passage, and Tuesday's voting saw the 'yes' votes come in at just under 58 percent. However the library budget and school bus purchase in Geneva did pass.
All of the Monroe County school districts saw their budgets pass, and most of them by a wide margin. That includes the West Irondequoit School District, where a spending plan failed twice last year. This time around, the budget there passed by 2664 to 1201.
But there was a change in the composition of the school board in West Irondequoit. Voters filled the three open seats with challengers Meg Steckley, Bill Evans and John Shafer. Two longtime board members were defeated including board President Charles Perreaud and Rebecca Schultz.
The West Irondequoit budget this year contained a tax levy increase of 2.6 percent, which came in under the state tax cap formula of 3.1 percent. District Superintendent Jeff Crane told Time Warner Cable News that the new budget allows the district to hire staff it could not hire last year to get the class sizes to what officials feel is appropriate.
