Niskayuna school budget passes with ease

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marc Schultz

Residents voting at Niskayuna High School during school board elections on Tuesday, May 19, 2015.

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Unlike memorable elections from the recent past, the budget passed in Niskayuna this spring without a fuss.

Only 495 voters, 17 percent, voted against this year’s budget; 2,494 were in favor. That’s hardly a surprise, considering a tax levy increase of exactly zero, achieved by a summer spent tearing the budget apart and painstakingly putting it back together in a leaner, more deliberate way.

The budget totals $78.1 million, a 1 percent increase over this year’s $77.3 million.

But as the six candidates for two seats on the Board of Education waited to find out who succeeded with voters, there was far more suspense.

After polls closed at 9 p.m. and vote counting began, a mechanical glitch with one machine forced candidates to stare anxiously at partially counted votes. They tried to make small talk while they waited.

Finally, Howard Schlossberg and David Koes breathed a sigh of relief as the red-and-white spreadsheet on the projector revealed they had won.

Schlossberg pulled together 1,443 votes and Koes gathered 1,190. Barbara Mauro, the only incumbent, came in third with 928 votes.