Webutuck school budget passes despite light turnout

WEBUTUCK — Despite heavy debate at previous Webutuck Board of Education meetings, few voters turned out to pass the town’s school budget Tuesday night.

The budget was approved 342-112.

After the first budget's defeat in May, the school board voted to reduce the school budget by $49,000 to $19,171,904, projected by the board to result in a tax levy of 4.89 percent.

The board achieved the decrease by leaving vacant an opening in the district’s maintenance department staff.

Richard Howard, in charge of the voting machines, said that as of 7 p.m., the number of voters was down by half from a month ago.

Resident Herb Eschbach said that he voted hoping the budget would pass.

"I think it is a reasonable budget and that it’s important for us to express our thoughts and feelings on it," Eschbach said. "We need to give consideration to the teachers, students and the administration.

The future of the students and the kind of quality of life we have in the future is important."

His wife, Susan, said she was shocked to find out that a low number of voters turned out.

"It’s unfortunate that people don’t care enough, because the children of this town are all very important," she said. "It’s surprising that people are not showing up to support the children."

Anthony Robert, who supported the budget, said that voting was an important right, and that he too was disappointed with the low turnout.

"The problem with any district is that we don’t get enough voters that ever show what they want, either for or opposed," Robert said. "I’m disappointed, but we get less and less voters every budget vote anyway."

David Ftanfore, who voted for the budget, said that the hardest part of any budget vote is to get voters to turn out.

"I do think the problem is that [voting] happens to be a matter of memory more than anything," Ftanfore said. "People are so caught up with their daily life that they forget, so this is discouraging to see. I think people would turn out if there were reminders like grass-roots signs, posters, balloons at parades, circus animals, something just to remind people to vote."

Kristin Oavarus said that with each budget vote, it gets harder and harder to bring voters out.

"You don’t get as many voters because you’re voting on something that someone already said no on already," Oavarus said. "It’s always been this way."

The approved budget is approximately $1,072,601 more than last year’s budget.