With the future of Cold Spring Early Learning Center hanging in the balance, more than 75 community members attended the Pine Plains Central School District Board of Education meeting Tuesday, Jan. 20, urging board members to vote down a proposal that would close the Stanfordville elementary school and consolidate students at Seymour Smith Intermediate Learning Center in Pine Plains.
After nearly an hour of public comment and a lengthy discussion, the board decided to delay a decision for two weeks, pushing a planned vote on whether to shutter Cold Spring to its Feb. 3 meeting.
Driven by declining student enrollment and mounting financial pressure, the current debate surrounding school consolidation has been ongoing since July 2024, but intensified earlier this month after officials learned that employee health care premiums for the district’s more than 200 employees could rise by as much as 16.43% for the 2026-27 academic year.
At the Board of Education’s Jan. 8 meeting, Superintendent Timm presented a short-term plan to shutter Cold Spring and move its pre-K through first grade students to Seymour Smith, which currently serves grades two through five.
Because the district must submit its tax levy limit calculation to the state comptroller by March 1, Timm initially called for a vote this week.
The district has sought employee and community feedback through three “Future-Ready” forums, and a district-wide survey emailed in November 2025, though participation was limited, with about 100 responses combined. According to Timm, two concerns consistently emerged: maintaining the elementary school experience for the students, and keeping the youngest students on separate buses.
“I only saw one short-term solution to honor these concerns,” Timm said. “Move Cold Spring children to Seymour Smith.”
That proposal has drawn strong opposition from parents in Stanford.
Brooke Brown, who spoke against Timm’s proposal at the Jan. 8 board meeting, authored an online petition urging the school board to “vote no” until “further analysis is done and greater community engagement is allowed.” By Tuesday night, the petition had collected 321 signatures.
“We need a holistic, long-term plan — no more year-to-year approvals,” Brown, a mother to a four-year-old, said during the public comment period at the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday. “The board needs to focus more on student impact and less on facilities. And why is this being brought to us so last minute? Forums should have taken place early last year.”
More than a dozen Stanford residents in attendance echoed Brown’s concerns. They raised questions about the impact on bus routes and riding times, and whether the influx of students would affect lunch lines and eating times. Jake DiBlasi, father of two, asked, ”Does Seymour Smith’s cafeteria need an upgrade? And how about the playground size: Will it be big enough?”
Some attendees requested side-by-side comparisons of district facilities’ operational and maintenance expenses. Parent Nate Kimball said, “We need to look at a long-term plan, taking enrollment and the tax burden into account. Analysis should be done including a comparison of cost savings with different consolidation options.”
Geneva Simms, mother of two, agreed, and added that redistricting should “seriously be considered,” — a sentiment shared by other attendees. Timm has previously been skeptical of that approach. At the second community forum, held on Nov. 20, he said that redrawing school attendance zones “usually falls apart due to an impact on the tax base.”
Only two of the estimated 20 people that spoke during the public comments were in favor of shuttering Cold Spring. Pine Plains resident and parent Jim Porell said, “I’ve lived here for 26 years, and I see the decline in enrollment. This has to be reconciled by keeping Seymour Smith and closing Cold Spring.” Former Board of Education member and parent Debra Lewis of Milan went further: “We don’t need more information. We’ll eventually be a one-building district.”
The district’s 2024 building utilization study showed that shuttering one elementary school would save an estimated $1.5 million annually in operational and transportation costs, without affecting class size, programs, and services. Renting the closed school could provide additional income, the report suggested.
Timm said the district faced challenges because of “expenses out of our control.” Among them, he cited the potential 16.43% rise in employee health premium costs; a 50% drop in student enrollment since 2004 (from 1,420 students to 783); the possible loss of state Foundation Aid — half of the district’s $8.5 million budget; an expected rise in employee pension plan expenses; and ongoing teacher and staff contract negotiations.
“The rise in health premium costs would increase [the 2026-27] budget by $1.6 million over the current budget,” Timm said. “The state comptroller says the tax cap will start at 2%, and this would put us 2.71% over, to 4.71%. So right out of the starting gate we are [piercing] the tax cap.”
According to Timm, the district received its preliminary 2026-27 state funding figures from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office an hour and a half before the Tuesday board meeting. “We will take some time to digest that,” Timm said. “We’re not sharing them tonight. But I predict that because we are going into an election year, [Foundation Aid] will stay in [2026-27]. After that, I don’t know what will happen, but we will lose $4 million sometime in the near future.”
Business Official Laura Rafferty said, “We could use our reserve funds if necessary. They would provide emergency [capital] to balance our budget for one year, maybe two. But if we can’t replenish the funds, we’ll be in trouble.”
School board members agreed on the importance of community involvement in the consolidation decision, but were split on the solution, and considered tabling the topic until the fall.
“As a parent, teacher, and board member, I want to have our students offered a quality education,” said Board of Education President Amie Fredericks. “If we move forward without acting, and keep all three buildings, we’ll pierce the tax cap.”
State property tax law dictates that if a school district’s tax levy increase exceeds the tax levy limit (cap), a supermajority of voters (60% or more) would be needed to pass the district budget.
“The required supermajority vote is rarely successful,” Fredericks said. “So more than likely we’ll have a contingency budget, which means cutting programs.”
Board member Fred “Chip” Couse, added, “A one-year contingency budget would also make the gap bigger between expenditures and revenue.”
Board member Jim Griffin suggested shuttering Cold Spring only if the May 19 budget vote fails to win a supermajority, but Timm said, “New York state requires a six-month lead time to close a building, which would mean March 1. So that’s not an option.”
In the end, the board agreed to consider the new public input, and await state funding numbers and the finalized health premium costs.
Timm said, “I wish we could have created a sense of urgency last year, but it didn’t happen until the fall forums. This is the biggest board attendance that I’ve had the opportunity to be present for. Now people are aware of what we’ve been talking about for the past 18 months.
The vote on whether to shutter Cold Spring is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 6:30 p.m. at Stissing Mountain High School.
Like Dr. Timm, I too wish that this issue had been escalated in 2024, giving all taxpayers the chance to come to a collaborative and supported solution for FY 2026/27.
Unfortunately, for me (and I suspect many others), I did not realize in 2024 that this might mean a tax increase of up to 20%…….that would have certainly made me sit up and pay attention!
The school board is elected by the taxpayers – to “govern the local public school district by setting policy, overseeing budgets, and ensuring accountability, acting as a bridge between the community and school administration to provide the best education for students while complying with state and federal laws.”
They have a responsibility to the students – but also a fiduciary responsibility to the rest of the community. We rely on them to let us know when there is a critical item that needs attention…….and a possible 20% increase in taxes seems to be a significant enough reason to be announced in every public facing vehicle and forum possible.