The total spending plan would be approximately $15.9 million with a tax levy increase of 3.8 percent.

Superintendent Mary Jo McPhail presented the brief preliminary budget report at last Wednesday’s school board meeting.

Business manager Jim Collison said those figures had already changed to just more than 5 percent by Friday, however, and that the numbers presented in March during the board’s budget presentation to the public would be different than current estimates.

"Right now it’s a fluid document," he said. "We’re working on it every day."

Collison said the board still had several items to look at before the final figures were calculated, with the potential for reductions higher than the number of additions they would likely have to make.

Personnel-related costs were cited as the major reasons for the 5 percent increase in spending, as 75 percent of the budget is personnel, Collison said.

During the presentation, McPhail explained that while Governor Eliot Spitzer’s budget includes a 6.14 percent increase in state aid to the Cooperstown school district, a large portion of that is building aid from the recent roofing project and money the district was set to receive already. She said the net increase in state aid was 2.58 percent.

District residents will also approve or reject a $7.2 million capital project when the spending plan is voted on Tuesday, May 15. Previous estimates put the capital project’s impact on the tax levy at a 2.2 percent increase during the 15-year life of the project.

The first presentation of the proposed budget will take place at the next regularly scheduled board meeting, March 7 at 7 p.m.

The board will also hold a public budget work session March 14 at 5:30 p.m. in the middle/high school cafeteria.

Members of the public are encouraged to attend the work session to comment or ask questions on the budget, McPhail said.

A second presentation will take place March 21 and the board will adopt a spending plan April 4.