Amanda Purcell is reporting in The Daily Mail for the first time in its history, next year the Cairo-Durham annual school budget will exceed $30 million. Voters will go to the polls May 16 to approve the $30.1 million spending plan for 2017-18, which includes a 2.57 percent increase in the tax levy. Under the proposal the district will lose an elementary teacher, but gain a truancy officer and a music teacher. “The position being eliminated is an elementary teacher, which goes by seniority, so an elementary teacher with lowest seniority is being cut,” Business Administrator Jeffrey Miriello said in an email. The cut will translate into an increase in class size at the kindergarten level. District voters will also be asked to okay the purchase of approximately 10 acres of land off Timmerman Road in Cairo, immediately adjacent to the school, for no more than $30,000. The parcel would be used for school evacuations. The Cairo-Durham Board of Education will hold its budget hearing at 7 p.m., May 4. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.