Residents throughout eight School Districts across Sullivan County will head to the polls soon to vote on school budget proposals as well as other important propositions and candidates for various Boards of Education.

In Tuesday’s and Today’s edition of the Sullivan County Democrat, we explore what’s on the ballot in different districts. We also have included “Meet the Candidates” section on pages 8-9B of today’s newspaper so that voters can learn a little bit more about the backgrounds of the candidates who are running.

While school elections may not get the same hype and attention as the regular political elections in November, they nonetheless play a crucial role in determining the future of our communities.

School board members influence almost every level of a school’s operations, from shaping educational policy to how students are transported to and from school.

According to Paul Heiser, a senior research analyst with the New York State School Boards Association, Voter turnout in the 2021-2022 school budget process decreased sharply from the year before, when school budget votes and school board elections were conducted exclusively by absentee ballot per an executive order by the governor.

Heiser found that the total number of votes cast for the 675 school budgets put up for public vote in 2021 was 520,717, which is a 67 percent decrease from the total of 1,580,974 votes cast in 2020, according to a NYSSBA analysis of State Education Department data. However, turnout was down less than 1 percent from 2019.

Heiser says that voter turnout has gone down steadily in the tax cap era. In 2012 - the first year of the tax cap, 804,004 people voted for their school budgets. By 2019, that number had fallen to 524,815. Voter turnout in 2021 was the second lowest total since the inception of the tax cap.

School governance can be difficult these days with boards tackling complex questions about everything from budget concerns to public health. We’ve seen this turbulence play out at dramatic school board meetings across the country in recent years. Board members are often volunteers who dedicate their time because they’re committed to their community.

The best way to ensure that our school boards reflect the will of our communities is for more people to get out and vote!