May 17th is right around the corner – that’s the day New Yorkers around the State are scheduled to vote on school budgets.

Dr. Rick Timbs of the Statewide School Finance Consortium told The Capitol Report that the average budget increase this year will be around 3.4%. That said, some districts are asking for a lot less; the budget for the Syracuse City Schools registers a decrease, down 6% from last year. The bad news is that between this year and last year, Syracuse mailed out hundreds of pink slips and tapped heavily into its reserve funds. When those funds are gone, they’re gone — districts who have zeroed-out their fund balances will be out of luck next year. And that doesn’t factor in a possible 2% property tax cap.

Timbs projects that half the districts in the state will have structural deficits in 3 years time.