School budget votes were as vital as ever this year because of expenses from the pandemic and skyrocketing inflation. Many schools feel relief as most budgets passed, though seven out of 700 districts' budgets failed across the state.

One of those that had detailed plans and a tight schedule to get finances back on track was especially relying on their budget to pass.

Newfield Central School District was found to be under "significant fiscal stress" by the New York State Comptroller's office.

Newfield is a small school district near Ithaca, New York. Locals say they are known best for their historic covered bridge. But more recently, the district has been making headlines for the dire financial situation of their schools. This week, the budget educators thought would fix the situation was voted down.

Superintendent Eric Hartz breaks down how they missed the mark.

"We needed to have 60% of, plus one, majority vote because of the tax levy we went out at. And we were at 53% with our vote. We had 285 voters come out to vote, which we appreciate everyone that comes out to vote," said Hartz.

Hartz says the board will now hold meetings to revamp the original $22 million budget and decide what to do next.

"If the board so chooses, which I believe they will, we will get one more shot at the voters to see if we can come to, get a, budget that can pass for us. And if that doesn't happen, then you're tied into a contingency budget, which I'm hoping we don't have to talk about," says Hartz.

The budget proposition asked for a 14% tax levy increase, which is over the state cap of 4.89% for Newfield, but the district's business administrator David Shaw says that did not mean the tax rate was going to increase at all.

The district believes there may be confusion of what the financially struggling district is asking for from property owners.

"That doesn't mean that the individual ax payer was going to pay fourteen percent more, because assessment values have increased across the Newfield region, we actually saw the tax rate for what the individual would pay decrease from the prior year," explains Shaw. "Last year it was 18.49 per $1,000 of assessed value. That was going down in this proposal to 18.25. So, for someone with a $100,000 home you were going to pay $24 less in taxes this year with no change of the assessed value of their property."

Shaw feels they are responsive to the community, but reminds voters of the New York State Comptrollers' rating of the magnitude of the school's financial distress.

"We were one of two schools in the entire state to be at the highest level of fiscal stress. That problem is not going to go away just because we want it to. We do have to take some actions to make sure that we're fiscally responsible here. If the vote goes down on June 21, we will be facing a contingent budget and that will have serious repercussions for this district. We simply can't afford that right now," says Shaw.

Seven-hundred and fifteen students attend Newfield schools in grades pre-k through 12th grade. Despite this "no" vote, leaders say in an exit survey, voters were positive about the district.

"It was overwhelming to hear the community say how proud they are of this school district and most people found that the quality of the education at Newfield was good or excellent. That gives us a sense of pride that were doing a good job, we're doing the right things here at Newfield. We just gotta get the number right," says Shaw.

Shaw says they will be having a lot of board meetings to work on a new budget to present to voters on June 21 for a re-vote.

Their next board meeting will be Thursday, May 19 at 6:30 p.m. upstairs in the district's elementary school. The board may have other meetings in the coming weeks on Thursday nights.

They will add them to their website if they are scheduled.