{"id":200052,"date":"2026-04-16T23:05:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/200052\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T23:05:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T23:05:21","slug":"watertowns-school-budget-is-north-countrys-largest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/200052\/","title":{"rendered":"Watertown\u2019s school budget is North Country\u2019s largest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) &#8211; The proposed Watertown city school budget is the largest of any North Country school district, surpassing Indian River Central.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Superintendent Dr. Larry Schmiegel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wwnytv.com\/2026\/04\/15\/watertown-city-school-district-proposed-budget\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wwnytv.com\/2026\/04\/15\/watertown-city-school-district-proposed-budget\/\">unveiled the spending plan Tuesday night<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It totals $112 million. Property taxes are proposed to go up 2.5%. Spending is up $8 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Historically, Indian River has had the highest school budget. Its next proposed spending plan is marked at $110 million.<\/p>\n<p>Spending breakdown<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Schmiegel\u2019s presentation explained the school plans to spend 20% more on administration, 8% more on programs and teaching, while the capital expenses remain flat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It also explained costs of health insurance are up 20%, liability insurance is up 20%, and utilities are up 10-15%.<\/p>\n<p>Budget philosophy<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The presentation included the line, \u201cWe build the most conservative budget the law allows while fully serving every student in this district.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">School budgets are voted on Tuesday, May 19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WWNY. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) &#8211; The proposed Watertown city school budget is the largest of any North Country&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1307,9,11,10,49,51,50,79466],"class_list":["post-200052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-largest","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-watertown-city-school-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}