TROY – A projected $2.9 million budget gap has Troy City School District officials looking at cutting as many as 25 jobs and programs as they strive to put together a balanced 2020-21 school year spending plan during the coronavirus pandemic, district and union officials said Monday.

The school district may layoff 20 teachers due to budget cuts, said Seth Cohen, past-president and current executive board member of the Troy Teachers Association. The last time the district faced major teaching reductions was in the 2009-10 budget when about 50 staff reductions were proposed.

The level of state aid is not helping Troy, which lost $2.2 million in additional aid that was proposed in the state’s executive budget, said Superintendent John Carmello.

“It’s devastating for the kids of Troy. The freeze in aid while on the surface may seem fair and equitable, it’s inequitable and unfair,” Carmello said.

While Troy is losing the $2.2 million, a wealthy suburban district is only losing $65,000, Carmello said.

“It hits poor urban districts harder than suburban districts,” Cohen said.

The school district has drafted three budget proposals so far this year. Tuesday night the district Board of Education will receive a fourth budget proposal from Carmello.,

The district tossed out its first two spending plans as the state warned that school funding would stick to current levels, creating the spending gap. The state is warning that more aid cuts could come because of massive revenue shortfalls due to the pandemic.

“We were having a good budget season before the coronavirus hit," Carmello said.

The district has pointed out in its budget presentations that the state could reduce aid after the budget is adopted.

The school board received a proposed $116,264,136 million budget to review at its April 8. Meeting. This budget was short $2,985,327 with revenues of $113,278,809 .

The district has a tax levy cap of 2.13 percent for the upcoming school budget year. The district’s current property tax levy is $37,200,798 in the 2019-20 budget of $114,174,990.

Since the last budget presentation, the district administration has been reviewing the budget proposal. Cohen said the district’s unions have met with the administration to discuss what purchases can be halted and which programs can be delayed

The first draft budget was for $116.96 million with a $1.1 million budget gap between expenses and forecast revenues of $115.81 million. The second draft budget of $116.36 million cut the budget gap to $903,934 spending gap between the projected budget and revenues of $115.46 million.

The school board will see the fourth proposed district budget when it meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Troy Middle School. The meeting will be livestreamed at https://stream.meet.google.com/stream/5a942135-df6e-41f2-8557-2618ea589afd. Anyone wishing to follow the meeting will have to log in using the credentials: Username: meet@troycsd.org and Password: AprilBoardMeet.

Anyone wishing to comment at the meeting should email their remarks to BOE@troycsd.org. The written comments will be read aloud at the meeting.