Schenectady

The city school board unanimously approved a $164.3 million budget that increases taxes by 2.75 percent and does not carry the heavy cuts announced earlier to bridge a budget deficit.

The budget will preserve athletic, arts and music programs and leave the district with a $462,000 gap in its 2014-15 spending plan, school officials said. It was approved by the board at its Wednesday meeting.

If approved by voters on May 20, the plan would hike taxes by about $60 annually for a house assessed at $100,000, officials said.

The budget was nothing but bad news when it was released and officials said they had to find deep cuts to bridge a more than $5.5 million deficit. Last Saturday, student athletes and their allies rallied to save the sports programs as the board discussed its options.

There was talk of cutting all athletics, even gym classes; elimination of elementary school librarians to save $400,000 and reductions in K-6 art ($620,000), K-6 music ($390,000), PreK-12 physical education ($400,000) and middle school technology ($380,000), and closing of the pool at the high school ($60,000).

Parents were told that unless district taxpayers were willing to foot a tax increase of between 2 and 2.5 percent, there will be no sports at Schenectady come August when fall teams are supposed to begin preparations.

The board avoided all those cuts with the budget they approved and Superintendent Laurence Spring proposed about $500,000 in mostly administrative cuts and asked board members to consider the tax increase.

Earlier this month, assemblymen Phil Steck and Angelo Santabarbara announced that Schenectady would get a 7.7 percent increase in state education aid over last year, plus another $980,000 in so-called foundation aid primarily earmarked for urban schools.

The board also approved a plan to save $205,000 by getting teachers to rely less on substitutes, to conserve energy and let students substitute athletics for gym class, officials said.