When New Yorkers cast their ballots earlier this month, they approved an amendment to the state constitution allowing small city school districts to double their debt limits.
Speaking on FLX Morning, Auburn Enlarged City School District Superintendent Jeff Pirozzolo said this will help with necessary building projects.
“It gives us more of an equal playing field now on the work we can get done,” Pirozzolo said. “Small city school districts have some of the oldest buildings in New York State and it was very difficult to keep the buildings up to standards and make sure that our boilers and roofs and everything were getting fixed because we couldn’t do it all in one time. We had to do it in multi-year phases because of the debt limit.”
Previously small city school districts had a debt limit of 5% of the assessed property value in the district. The amendment removes the special debt limitation from small city school districts, treating them the same as all other districts. This means their limit can now increase to 10% of the assessed property value in the district
The measure passed with 56% of voters for and 31% against.
With this change, Pirozzola added the district can now focus on necessary roof and boiler work as part of its next capital project.
