School Desk Webinar: Money Talks - Budgeting & Real Time Issues
January 16, 2026
Presenters:
John Brucato, Assistant Superintendent of Finance & Operations, Briarcliff Manor UFSD
Dr. Ron Clamser, Jr., Assistant Superintendent for Business, Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES
As part of the Money Talks webinar series in Education Finance, we want to thank local business officials, John Brucato and Ron Clamser, Jr. for providing a board level perspective on the school district budgeting process. The focus of budgeting is to carefully consider the balance of revenues and expenditures.
Assessing school district revenues:
- Primary revenue sources for school districts are State and Federal funds, local taxes (especially property taxes), and other sources that may be more or less important to your district’s budget, including revenues from other governmental entities (e.g., tuition).
- The focus of the district budget process is on the General Fund, so although Federal revenues may be critical to your district, they typically do not affect the General Fund revenues directly.
- In past years, the STAR program to assist homeowners with school taxes was primarily seen as a reduction in their school tax bill. As the program has increasingly offered only rebate checks that may arrive long after school taxes have been paid, some homeowners may feel more anxious about their school tax bill.
- The contribution of each source of revenue to school districts varies tremendously. In the current year’s property tax report card, WPSBA districts were proposing a property tax levy to cover anywhere from 35 – 90% of proposed spending.
Considering key expenditure categories:
- Typically, school districts will see over 70% of proposed expenditures in the category of salaries and benefits. Considering FTE (full-time equivalent) needs for the coming year and the impact of collective bargaining agreements are critical to estimating and managing this number.
- Health care costs are a fast-increasing category of benefit expenditures, as both the price of health care insurance increases, and the legacy costs of retiree health care affect current school budgets.
- Budgeting while simultaneously negotiating collective bargaining agreements creates a tricky dynamic, as districts provide transparent budget documents that may show increases in excess of current offers, to ensure conservative budgeting.
Balancing the budget with continuing uncertainty in real time:
- The implementation of the tax levy cap was a game changer in the way schools approach the budget-building process. Whereas budgeting used to begin by looking at expenditure needs, now school districts calculate the property tax levy first and then build the budget backwards, planning for expenditures that balance with the expected revenues.
- Increased uncertainty exists in the school district budgeting environment with underlying economics (e.g., interest rates, tariffs, health care costs) and state and federal funding, as state budgets have been delayed past school budget deadlines and federal funding remains uncertain.
As your district goes through the budgeting process, look forward to Friday updates through WPSBA’s weekly budget survey, starting in March. In the meantime, brush up on your budget knowledge with the slides from the Money Talks presentation, which you can access through the link below.
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