Grand Island School District budget passes on 2nd vote

Story and photo by Alice Gerard

Senior Contributing Writer

The Grand Island Central School District budget passed Tuesday.

Superintendent Dr. Brian Graham expressed his gratitude to the 4,001 voters who came to the polls at Grand Island High School for the second vote on the 2026-27 academic year.

“First of all, I’m really grateful that Grand Island showed up tonight for our students and for our schools. This is what community looks like: 4,000 voices and one shared belief in our students,” Graham said. “It’s also important to recognize the Board of Education for listening to the results of the first budget, making changes, and appreciating what the community was telling us about the tax levy.”

The budget (proposition one) passed by the vote of 2,650-1,340, and proposition two (vehicle purchases) passed by the vote of 2,529-1,423.

Voters wait to sign in with election inspectors in the second school budget referendum, held on June 16.

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Graham said the Board of Education took the vote of May 19 into consideration, when the first budget proposal was defeated by 1,352-1280, and the proposition to purchase vehicles was defeated by the vote of 1,334-1,280.

“Thirteen hundred people told us that they were upset about the tax levy increase of 2.69%,” Graham said. “The board listened to that and took out $500,000 from the original budget and provided a 1.5% tax levy increase, which is a significant change. I think that the community appreciated that.

“We are absolutely thrilled with the result because it protects the programs that we have for our students. Let’s not forget that, on May 22, Business First identified Grand Island as the No. 1 stable neighborhood in Western New York. That included the graduation rate in our high school. It included the poverty rate of the Island and the housing stability. Those three factors, those three indexes, resulted in 14072, Grand Island, as ranking No. 1 in Western New York. Having strong schools is part of that formula, and we are thrilled that Grand Island came out with such a positive result for tonight’s revote.”

When asked about the possibility of the school district’s presenting another capital improvement project to the voters, Graham said, “We have a new board, and they are starting this July. It will be part of the conversation. The entire board will workshop the first capital project, redline it, and probably present to the community a tax neutral capital project. At least, that’s the plan.”