Finance and Audit Committee Chairperson John Kast told the Albion Board of Education on April 9 that finishing the district's 2024-2025 budget had been difficult work, according to the minutes, because "theoretically, we're not sure of the state's budget." The committee's answer, arrived at anyway, was to send voters a spending plan that goes out at zero percent on the tax levy — and then to spend much of the same meeting adopting the paperwork needed to put that budget, and three other money questions, in front of Albion voters on May 21. The Board approved the Annual School District Meeting Resolution scheduling that vote for Tuesday, May 21, from noon to 8 p.m. at Hoag Library. Beyond the budget itself, voters will decide three propositions: authorizing the district to pull $650,000 from its Bus Purchase Reserve Fund to buy buses for the 2025-2026 school year; raising $664,510 through the tax levy for the Hoag Library, part of the Swan Library Association; and establishing a new Capital Improvements Reserve Fund, capped at $15,000,000 and running no longer than 10 years, to help pay for future building and equipment projects, including the district's share of any BOCES capital work. The same ballot will fill two at-large Board seats carrying five-year terms beginning July 1; candidates must file nominating petitions signed by at least 25 qualified voters, or 2% of the vote total from the last annual meeting, by 5 p.m. on April 22. The resolution passed on a roll-call vote of 8-0, with Christopher Kinter recorded as absent — the same 8-0, Kinter-absent margin by which the Board separately adopted a resolution naming election personnel. Wayne Wadhams, the Board president, was designated permanent chairperson of the meeting; Cindy M. Ishmael was named chief election inspector; and Richard Recckio II, the district's school business administrator, was appointed assistant clerk. Ten residents were named as inspectors of election, to be paid $16 an hour unless they already hold a Board-contracted rate. Before turning to the ballot, the Board also adopted, by the same 8-0 vote, a resolution clearing an earlier piece of the same 2024-2025 budget: a roughly $100,000 project to replace doors, frames, hardware, ceilings and lighting at the district's bus garage. The resolution declares the work a Type II action under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, exempt from further review, citing a 2021 finding by the State Historic Preservation Office that the bus garage building does not qualify for the state or national historic registers. The $100,000 is to be earmarked as a "Transfer to Capital Fund" line item in the budget voters will consider May 21. Not every ask on the table that night reached a vote. In the public forum that opened the meeting, Heather Allchin, a bus driver and lifelong Albion resident, asked the Board to fund an aide on every large bus route, telling members that runs can carry 20 to 45 students — more than double the national average classroom size of 16 to 23 — while a single driver manages traffic, discipline and, for younger riders, seatbelts. She described an aide she has worked with this year, identified only as Amanda, as making the job possible, and separately asked the Board to consider stronger consequences for bus behavior among middle and high school students. The minutes do not record any Board response or referral of the request. The bond between the ballot measures and the district's physical plant was reinforced later in the meeting, when Superintendent Edwards told the Board that a separate, ongoing 2022 capital project — the gutting of the High School gym and installation of turf and track improvements — remains on schedule and under budget, with the gym floor being removed that week and the multi-purpose field about 90% turfed.