Proposed Katonah-Lewisboro school budget calls for job cuts, use of reserves

CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - Katonah-Lewisboro School District officials will detail their 2026-27 spending plans this month in a presentation that brings together the two major budget components they worked on in February.

In a meeting on March 12, School Superintendent Ray Blanch will turn over to the school board his proposed $131.8 million budget, representing a spending hike of $4.4 million over current outlays. To stay within a state-imposed limit on increases in KLSD’s property-tax levy, the proposed administration budget would cut jobs—hopefully through attrition—tap millions in reserve cash and plan on almost $15 million in other revenue, most of it coming in state aid.

The seven-member school board, which makes the final determination on district spending, will review the proposed budget and could adopt it later this month. A public hearing is scheduled for May 7, less than two weeks before the public goes to the polls on May 19 to fill two school board seats, vote on the budget and consider two other spending propositions.

“Tonight, we’ll be hitting the instructional part [of the budget],” Blanch told a Feb. 26 school board meeting, two weeks after presenting his noninstructional portion. “We’ll meet in two weeks [at 7 p.m. on March 12] and bring those two parts together as a cumulative, entire budget piece.”

Joining Blanch at the school board’s Feb. 26 meeting were building principals, district administrators and others. Lisa Herlihy, the assistant superintendent for business, took the lead in the evening’s slide presentation of proposed instructional spending.

A similar meeting on Feb. 12 had reviewed budgeting for areas like technology and transportation that support classroom activities for a projected total of 2,769 students. Up slightly from last year, the new projection stops for now a decade-long decline from an enrollment of more than 3,100 students.

Asked whether budget belt-tightening will cost people their jobs, Amanda Bergen, KLSD’s chief communications officer, said in an email, “We know we will have reductions in full-time employees. As with every year, our hope is to handle it through attrition. We anticipate knowing more by the March 12 meeting.”

Taken together, the instruction and noninstruction budgets total $131,816,402, an increase of $4,405,933 over current spending. As always, the budget will principally be funded (some 86 percent) by a levy on property in the district’s four communities.

The state tax cap limits the increase in this year’s levy to 3.72 percent, or $4,067,878, which will provide $113,558,301 in revenue. Tax rates, reflecting the different municipal assessing practices,  are expected to rise in Katonah by 5.85 percent and Lewisboro by 0.21 percent; the district also includes parts of North Salem (up 0.78 percent) and Pound Ridge (2.08 percent). 

State aid, projected for now at $11,108,294, and other revenue, like an estimated $1 million in interest and earnings and $1.6 million in KLSD’s share of county sales-tax receipts, is expected to cover the remaining $18,258,101 in spending.

School budgets, like kitchen-table calculations, must often rely on estimates and projection of some numbers. State aid totals, for example, are still subject to change by lawmakers in Albany, who have until April 1 to enact New York’s spending plan.

Similarly, some major outlays are estimates. Health insurance premiums rose by almost 12 percent in 2026, but their 2027 total remains unknown. With hospital and medical costs projected to approach $25 million in 2026-27, budget officials penciled in an increase of $2,398,215 on that line.

As Trustee Marjorie Schiff pointed out at the Feb. 12 budget session, the proposed $2.4 million health-insurance increase consumed more than half of the $4.4 million seen as the maximum new spending under the tax cap.

To help balance the budget while remaining cap-compliant, administration officials propose drawing $3,350,000 in funds previously allocated but not spent, a reduction of $200,000 from the total tapped for the current academic year.

In addition to Proposition 1—the budget—district residents will be asked to approve two other spending questions. One would authorize the use of funds, already on-hand, that are earmarked for improvements to athletic fields and track. The other would authorize a $21 million bond to finance renovations at the former Lewisboro Elementary School. The building, which has not been used as a school facility in more than a decade, would be refurbished to accommodate a universal pre-kindergarten program.