School Boss Talks About Ballot Proposal 1

Next Tuesday, November 7th there are two New York State proposals on the ballot, and the local school boss is talking about New York Proposal 1. It amends the NYS constitution to remove the debt limit on small city school districts. A “yes” vote supports this amendment to eliminate the constitutional debt limit for smaller school districts.

Be sure to read our coverage of the candidates running for City and County office.

Here is Rye City School District’s Superintendent Eric Byrne explaining the proposal, as well as an explainer video from local State Senator Shelly Mayer.

“Dear RCSD Community,

One of the two propositions on the ballot on Tuesday impacts small city school districts like the Rye City School District. It’s related to allowing schools in towns with fewer than 125,000 residents to borrow the same percentage of taxable value as other New York school districts for capital projects.

Under the current law, small city school districts may only borrow up to 5% while other school districts may borrow up to 10%. The rule stems from a 1951 amendment designed to curb spending when there was not an annual budget vote in place in these districts. Now we have an annual school district budget vote each May. In fact, it is the only budget to be voted on by our community each year.  Locally, there are three school districts that are impacted by this proposed proposition: the Rye City, New Rochelle, and White Plains school districts.

An article from the Journal News is linked here and it sums the proposition up fairly succinctly. State Senator Shelley Mayer also produced a short video on the proposition. Watch it here.

Please be sure to get out and vote on Tuesday!

Sincerely,

Eric Byrne, Ed.D.

Superintendent of Schools”

And Senator Mayer’s explainer video: