Community votes against cutting school activities

A second version of the South Country Central School District was passed, with 2,018 yes votes to 1300 no votes, following the budget revote was held on Tuesday, June 16.

The vote follows the district’s budget vote on May 19, where the initial proposed 2026-2027 budget was voted down, 1,529 in favor and 2,747 opposed.

The approved budget included a $6 million reduction in the overall budget from $150 million to $144 million and lowered the proposed tax levy increase from 13.5 percent to 5.5 percent.

The average household’s tax bill would increase approximately $222 annually, or from $11 to $25 a month.

According to acting assistant superintendent for finance and management services John Belmonte during a previous presentation of the second budget, the district is looking at reductions “across the board,” including cuts to administration and programming.

The new budget comes with significant reductions throughout the district. Previously,  officials said the plan would eliminate 34 full-time positions, on top of the 60 positions cut in the first budget, cut late bus services and increase class sizes.

Following the fiscal woes of South Country Central District, the Special Act legislation passed by New York state for $11 million in funding with an advance of $7 million brought up the question in the community according to Belmonte of “what are we going to do to ensure that this situation doesn’t happen again?”

Along with the funds, fiscal oversight from the New York State comptroller is in place from the legislation beginning in 2026 through 2055 for quarterly financial reports.

Community members had strong feelings about the initial and subsequent budget vote, with many social media opportunities to express why residents were in support or not in support of the budget increase.

The alternative, to enact the contingency budget, was particularly bleak to many people. A South Country rising senior student posted a long case for voting yes on the second budget, saying she had not lost faith in her school, but rather that members of the community did not fully grasp the scope of the cuts to personnel and extracurricular activities.

Some of the additional cuts to make the $6 million reduction included administration ($616,000, which includes reduction in security 530,000), elimination of conference and travel ($25,000), postage ($10,000), reduction of clerical substitution ($35,000), and clerical overtime ($15,000).

With the elimination of the 34 additional FTE (full-time employee) positions, the following activities have been eliminated or reduced: eliminating late busses, eliminating co-curricular intramurals, eliminating the director of guidance, eliminating the director of technology, elimination of junior varsity athletics, reduction of athletic transportation, athletics uniforms, elimination of 4 FTE with math interventionists at the K-5 level, English increased class sizes, math and business combination of classes, reduction of electives, the elimination of Advanced Placement chemistry, physics, and environmental science, college level Spanish and French, removal of technology electives at high school, and removal two elementary counselors.

The contingency budget, which would have been put into place for the 2026-2027 school year had the second proposal failed on June 16, would have an additional $3.9 million reduction to the overall budget along with the $5.6 increase already factored in the second proposal.

The morning after the budget vote, the South Country Central School District posted the Investigative Management Group that was engaged by the South Country Central School District to conduct a comprehensive fact‑finding analysis into significant budget overruns incurred during fiscal year 2024–2025. 

The investigation revealed that the district exceeded its legally authorized budget, resulting in the depletion of the General Fund, an unassigned fund balance deficit of approximately $1.78 million, and a year‑over‑year deterioration of $6.56 million. Further, 21 major accounts exceeded their statutory limits, producing negative balances totaling more than $5.4 million.

IMG’s review found “no evidence of embezzlement, kickbacks, or intentional misappropriation of funds. Instead, the overruns resulted from systemic failures in budgeting, forecasting, internal controls, and administrative oversight.”

The key contributing factors included:

• Inadequate budgeting practices, including optimistic assumptions regarding a $5 million fund balance despite contrary internal recommendations.
• Lack of timely communication from the Finance Office to the Superintendent and the Board concerning emerging deficits.
• Siloed departmental decision-making, especially in Special Education and Human Resources, resulting in duplicative and inefficient expenditures.
• Failure to follow established procurement, contracting, and approval protocols, including service expansions and student placements conducted outside the business office workflow.
• Repeated noncompliance with state reporting requirements (NYSED), impairing transparency and exposing the district to regulatory risk.
• Overreliance on year-end budget transfers to mask ongoing negative balances, rather than implementing corrective measures when issues first appeared.

The digital forensic review identified numerous documents and email communications demonstrating that key financial personnel were aware—or reasonably should have been aware of projected deficits throughout the year but failed to escalate concerns appropriately. These included cash‑flow projections reflecting multimillion‑dollar shortfalls, Budget Status Reports showing early negative balances, and communications concerning the presentation of cash‑flow for TAN (Tax Anticipation Note) financing.  

The report expressed confidence in interim superintendent, John Dolan, stating: “The district’s new acting assistant superintendent for finance has begun implementing meaningful reforms to strengthen internal controls, increase transparency, and restore compliance.”