School budget vote Tuesday

Incumbent Board of Education Trustees Darlene Tangney and Stewart Mininsky are running unopposed in this year’s school election. On Tuesday, residents will vote on the proposed $131.9 million budget for the 2015-16 school year as well as the seats on the board.

The spending plan, adopted by school officials at an April 14 Board of Education meeting, is 1.48 percent larger than the current budget. The tax levy would increase by 3.19 percent to roughly $99 million, its limit under the state tax cap.

Tangney, the school board’s president and a retired executive assistant at Manhattan Savings Bank, was first elected to the board in 2009, and has served two three-year terms. She was re-elected in 2012, when Mininsky — a retired maintenance department mechanic for the school district — challenged her and fellow Trustee Gina Guma for two contested seats. Mininsky received the most votes, with Tangney and Guma tying for second. Guma decided to forgo a runoff and conceded the seat to Tangney.

Mininsky, the board’s vice president, who has served on a number of committees in the district over the past 25 years, ran on a platform of financial responsibility, and said he would do more to limit spending. Both he and Tangney, a past president of several PTAs, supported the proposed budget when the board voted to adopt it last month.

“The budget maintains or enhances our existing academic program and maintains our current extracurricular program,” Mininsky said. “Increases in art, music, special education and secondary staff will enable more efficient scheduling and increase services to students.”

The spending plan includes additional special education teachers, a part-time psychologist, three new English as a New Language positions, arts program instructors, a new fifth-grade elementary teacher, permanent substitutes for the middle and high schools and math and literacy coaches for the elementary schools.