EdVANTAGE Blog

As we reported previously, over 92 percent of school budgets won approval by voters on Tuesday.  The results may have also produced a new record for “yes” votes.

Overall turnout in school budget votes across the state was up by about one-third over 2009.  Right now, the statewide total of yes votes is just 39 short of the all-time high of 591,491,set in 2003 – the first year the State Education Department began compiling vote counts.  One district has yet to vote.

The 2003-04 state budget was the last to cut School Aid, suggesting that supportive voters are most likely to come out when schools are threatened by the state’s fiscal decisions.

As I wrote earlier this week, turnout has tended to bounce around from year-to-year but had been drifting downward since the middle of the decade.  This year yes votes were 14 percent higher than the average for the prior seven years, no votes totaled 11 percent higher than the average.

Here is an update of the chart I posted earlier in the week, including the 2010 pass rate and vote counts. The figures include results given by newspapers where SED did not report an outcome.  Also, some prior year figures have changed; I went back included a few districts altered by consolidation.

Along with the chart are some regional figures and an analysis of results grouped by proposed tax levy change.

No region stands out as having a low pass rate.  All were within a 10-point band – between 87 and 97 percent.

The Lower and Mid-Hudson Valley had the biggest increases in turnout over past trends – both yes and no votes were more than 24 percent above historical averages in both regions.

On Long Island, yes votes were up by 19 percent, with no’s up by only 4 percent.

Most upstate regions were closer to their average turnout.

As has been true in the past, districts with defeated budgets tended to have proposed higher tax levy increases.  The median proposed tax levy increase for districts with defeated budgets was 5.7 percent, for districts with approved budgets, the median was 2.8 percent.

On spending, the median proposed change was .9 percent for successful budgets and 2.1 percent for defeated budgets.

Several newspapers ran editorials analyzing the outcomes, and most attributed the high approval rate to the attentiveness of district leaders to taxpayer concerns.  Examples:  New York Journal News,  Syracuse Post-Standard,  Watertown Daily Times, Middletown Times Herald Record, Newsday (paid subscription required).