The Lake Shore Central School District will have a lower than anticipated school tax rate increase for the 2007 – 2008 school year.  This is a result of an unanticipated increase in revenue for the 2006 – 2007 fiscal year.

The Superintendent of Schools, Jeffrey R. Rabey stated, “That after we concluded the fiscal year in June and verified through our external audit process in July, we realized an increase of some $378,229.65 in the interest of our investments and an increase of some $393,407.32 in the Native American Tuition.”  He continued with, “We planned $225,000.00 and $1,050,000.00 respectfully for those categories.”

 At their regular meeting, held on August 21st, the Lake Shore Central School District’s Board of Education acted on the recommendation from Jeffrey Rabey, to utilize $400,000.00 of the increase in revenue to apply to the tax levy. 

Rabey said, “This recommendation will have the following positive effect for the school-community; there will be a minimal increase of 0.74% on the tax levy or an average of 1.0% on the tax rate, much less than the 3.5% originally anticipated during the budget development process.” 

To further expand on this; the Town of Evans will only see an increase of $0.45 per $1000 assessed value, the Town of Eden will see a decrease of $1.12 per $1000 assessed value and the Town of Brant will see a decrease of $0.79 per $1000 assessed value.  Rabey explained, “The reason that there is an increase for Evans and not Eden and Brant, is that there was an overall decrease of approximately $2 million in the taxable assessed value for Evans along with a drop of 4 points on the equalization rate, therefore more of the tax burden shifted to Evans versus Brant and Eden.”

The remaining unanticipated revenues will be applied to the District’s undesignated fund balance, which now has a threshold of 3% of a school district’s total budget.  This will assist the District as it prepares to implement GASB-45 regulations, which will require school districts to record benefits for retirees

The superintendent summarized, “This fortunate state of affairs has put us in a very positive economic position for the present and looking into the future.  The continued efforts of the Board of Education, in being fiscally responsible, is now paying off for the Lake Shore School-Community and should be commended.”