TIMES
SOUTHERN
ULSTER
Vol. 13, No 7
FEBRUARY 17 - 23, 2016
3
Huge win
for
Highland
Ulster County Executive Mike Hein
Highland
heroes
Page 24
SERVING HIGHLAND, MARLBOROUGH AND PLATTEKILL
Hein delivers 2016 State of the County address
delivered his eighth annual State of the
County Address on the campus of Ulster
Community College last week before a
crowded room filled with residents, busi-
ONE DOLLAR
Page 40
‘Be a disrupter’
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
3
ness owners, legislators, town officials,
county department heads, dignitaries,
family and friends.
Continued on page 2
Our annual swimsuit edition!
Highland
school
budget up
by 4.19%
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
Mark Reynolds
Herb Litts gives the universal understood sign of ‘I’m ready,” Saturday, before taking a plunge in the pond at Berean Park. A group of hardy
souls braved the freezing cold water to raise $120,000 in the fight against Alzheimer’s. Story, photos on pages 20 and 21.
WWW.SOUTHERNULSTERTIMES.COM
The Highland school board released a
first draft of it’s proposed $42,207,486 budget for the 2016-17 school year. This figure
is up by $1,699,206, or 4.19%, over the present school budget. School Superintendent
Debra Haab stressed that this proposal is
very preliminary and will undergo several revisions before it is finalized and
presented to the voters for their approval
in the spring.
“This will be scrutinized and refined
over the next two and a half months,” she
said.
Haab said the statewide levy limit
stands at 0.12 percent but variations are
made from district to district.
Haab called the proposed budget a
starting point.
“The best-case scenario right now is
that we get to maintain our current level
of programming [but] you’ll see these
[budget] numbers tightening up as we go
along,” she said. “I want to stress that [in]
this draft more than likely the bottom line
will go down. Until we know where our
state aid numbers are going to be, we’ll
be planning for reductions and hoping we
don’t have to make any.”
Haab usually knows the amount of
state aid her district is going to receive
for the next school year after the state
Continued on page 37