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Ichabod Crane officials say district has enough in reserve to cover lost state aid

Sep 08, 2020 6:00 am
Emilia Teasdale is reporting for The Columbia Paper the Ichabod Crane school board met in person and via Zoom, September 1. As his first order of business, board President Matthew Nelson announced that board member Jessica Berner has submitted her letter of resignation. Community members are invited to apply for the position and the vacancy will be filled at the board's October meeting. The person chosen will serve until May 2021. Officials promised to later release more information about how to apply for the seat. Also, District Business Manager Michael Brennan shared a video presentation by Questar III BOCES reminding districts the governor had warned of a 20 percent cut in state aid if the federal government failed to come through with additional relief to states. According to the Questar III video, the state began withholding that aid in July, meaning that districts in Rensselaer, Columbia and Greene counties would cumulatively lose in excess of $80 million. Brennan said there is much unknown about the cuts, but he did say the district receives about $15 million overall in state aid. If the state withheld the aid the cut would total $3.1 million. Brennan said the district has healthy reserves. The intention is to first look to allocating the reserves to fill the gap and then making cuts to non-COVID 19 related supplies. The board also received an update on the district construction projects from Turner Construction and CS Arch. Work at the middle and high schools continues, with temporary classrooms in place at the middle school. Dan Woodside, from CS Arch, said a public hearing on the planned installation of solar panels at the Ichabod Crane schools will be held September 10, before the Kinderhook Planning Board. Read more about this story in The Columbia Paper.
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