A group of community advocates in Mount Vernon is accusing the city school district of campaigning illegally ahead of a budget revote scheduled for tomorrow. The advocates say the district crossed a legal line in its push to win voter approval, and they have responded by filing an emergency formal complaint, turning what would normally be a routine school vote into a public dispute over how far a district can go in promoting its own budget.
According to the complainants, the emergency complaint was filed with multiple agencies, including the New York State Department of Education. It names the school district, the superintendent and the mayor, and accuses them of using aggressive tactics to get people to vote for the budget. The advocates frame the effort not as neutral information but as an improper campaign by public officials.
The fight comes after voters already turned down the district's first attempt. Last month, residents rejected an initial budget proposal that called for a tax increase of nearly 2 percent. In response, the district came back with a revised plan carrying a smaller tax increase of 1.5 percent, which is the version now going before voters again in the revote.
At the center of the allegations are videos posted on the district's official Facebook page, including one featuring the superintendent. The complainants argue that such posts violate state law, which they say bars a school district from using public funds in any way, shape or form to coerce people into voting a particular way. In the video, the superintendent tells residents, We are not asking you to vote again, we are asking you to vote on something better, before adding, Mount Vernon, we can do this.
The advocates say they want all of the campaign-style content taken down from the district's platforms, pointing to that post and others they consider improper. Some of them go further, saying they would like to see the election withheld so it does not take place at all, or to have the vote nullified, reflecting how seriously they view the alleged misuse of official channels.
The district's superintendent pushed back in a statement defending the outreach as part of the job rather than a campaign. The superintendent said that one of the responsibilities of the role is to inform parents, students, taxpayers and the broader community about the reasons a school tax increase is warranted, as well as the potential consequences tied to the budget decision before voters.
For now, the two sides remain at odds as the revote approaches, with the complaint pending before the agencies the advocates contacted. The case highlights the difficult distinction between a school district informing residents about a budget and a district campaigning for a particular outcome, a line the complainants believe was crossed and that the superintendent maintains was respected.