Haldane, Garrison at Odds Over Tuition

Cold Spring district says no to set rate

Will Haldane always be an option for Garrison graduates?

That’s the big question underlying a dispute over the terms of the tuition agreement between the school districts.

Garrison educates students through the eighth grade, after which they enroll at Haldane, O’Neill in Highland Falls, Putnam Valley or a private high school. Garrison pays about $17,000 in tuition for each student who attends a public school and has reached five-year agreements with O’Neill, Putnam Valley and Haldane. But Haldane reserved the right to negotiate the tuition for incoming ninth graders each year. 

“We’re looking for budget consistency and long-term planning,” said Kent Schacht, the Garrison board member who pleaded the district’s case at Haldane’s board meeting on Tuesday (April 9).

Haldane has balked at agreeing to the price for ninth graders because it wants to “keep open the option of negotiating the tuition rate should something unforeseen occur,” said Peggy Clements, president of the Haldane board. 

Speaking at the Garrison school board meeting on Wednesday, Schacht proposed asking for a deal that sets the price for ninth graders but allows Haldane to renegotiate with two years’ notice.

The uncertainty of an annual tuition negotiation raises the question of whether Haldane High School will remain an option for eighth graders, said Carl Albano, Garrison’s interim superintendent. “We can’t guarantee them Haldane because we don’t have a negotiated rate.”

He noted that Garrison seventh graders don’t yet have Haldane as an option because the districts haven’t agreed on a rate for the ninth graders enrolling at Haldane in 2025. That uncertainty isn’t an issue for O’Neill or Putnam Valley because each agreed to a five-year schedule for all students that raises the rate annually at 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. O’Neill and Haldane reached their agreements in 2022 and Putnam Valley in 2023.

According to Joseph Jimick, the Garrison business administrator, the district paid tuition for 84 students for the current school year, including 47 at Haldane, 33 at O’Neill and four at Putnam Valley. Next year, it expects to pay for 95 high school students, including 51 at Haldane, 27 at O’Neill and 17 at Putnam Valley.

For 2023-24, the district paid $16,825 per student at all three high schools. 

The dispute dates to the spring of 2022, when Haldane wanted to charge Garrison $21,500 per student based on the “Seneca Falls formula,” named for the district involved in a lawsuit that established the formula in 1949. Haldane had been charging Garrison about $14,000 a year. 

Garrison, facing a deficit that would require a 6.6 percent tax increase, said it couldn’t afford that rate, and Haldane agreed to charge $16,500 for 2022-23 as negotiations continued.

“Haldane has worked to find a compromise that recognizes the challenges that Garrison is experiencing,” said Clements, the Haldane board president. But, she added, “We think an education at Haldane is worth the non-resident tuition rate, which the state has calculated for Haldane as $18,982.”

Haldane board members say the district is committed to accepting Garrison students, as it has for decades. “There is a long history and a relationship,” said Clements, who noted that districts are intertwined in many ways, such as with shared middle school sports teams and classes for students with disabilities.

The Garrison board on Wednesday adopted a proposed $13.3 million budget for 2024-25 with a 4.44 percent tax increase that matches the state cap calculated for the district. The budget will be on the ballot on May 21.