By ARIEL ZANGLA
Freeman staff
azangla@freemanonline.com; twitter.com/ArielAtFreeman

SAUGERTIES, N.Y. — The school district’s proposed $54.7 million budget  for 2012-13 appears to have been adopted by voters.

District residents voted 1,439-1,351 in favor of the plan on Tuesday, an 88-vote margin. There still were 93 affidavit ballot to be counted, but 91 of those ballots would have to be “no” votes for the result to change.

The affidavit ballots are to be counted on May 22.

The $54,676,980 budget increases spending by $1,349,380, or 2.53 percent, from the current year’s budget of $53,327,600. The new plan calls for $35,194,753 to be raised through property taxes, an increase of $645,094, or 1.87 percent, from the current tax levy of $34,549,659.

The state-set limit for the district’s 2012-13 tax levy was $35,212,444.

The budget cuts an elementary school teaching position and two English-as-a-Second-Language teaching positions, as well as five part-time monitors and a data administrator position. Officials also expected to save money in special education programs, either by eliminating one teacher or reducing the out-of-district placements of students.

In Tuesday’s race for Board of Education seats, voters re-elected two incumbents and returned a former trustee to the board. Each of the three winners will serve a three-year term.

Incumbent Richard Petramale received 1,771 votes, while former board member Donald Tucker received 1,726, and incumbent Teresa Bach-Tucker received 1,548. Newcomer Lawrence Quick trailed with 1,195 votes.

Petramale has served on the board for nine years.

Tucker served on the Board of Education from 2003 to 2009. Continued...

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Bach-Tucker served on the board from 1992 to 2001 and was re-elected in 2009.

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