By MATT LINDSEY

CANTON – Just two years ago Canton Central School was proposing a merger with Potsdam Central School because of financial troubles in both communities.

Now the school is restoring previously cut positions, creating new ones, adding bus routes and planning for the future.

Canton Central’s fiscal outlook has dramatically improved over the past two years as a result of many factors, said William “Bill” Gregory, Canton Central School superintendent.

First, the Gap Elimination Adjustment is gone. From 2009-10 through 2014-15, a period of six years, some $10.3 million dollars in state aid was withheld from the district, an average of over $1.7 million a year.

Though not the only factor, the GEA was a major reason the district experienced financial stress during this time frame, leading to a huge, multi-year reduction in staff and programming.

“Thankfully, the GEA is no longer impacting schools,” he said.

Secondly, the district realized hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings as a result of a reduction in the required employer contribution rates to the Teacher Retirement System and the Employee Retirement System. Thirdly, negotiated contract settlements with faculty, staff, and administrators resulted in significant health insurance premium savings.

“Several other factors contributed to our current positive financial position as well,” he said. “This included, but were not limited to: the withdrawal of a half-million dollar tax certiorari challenge our school was facing this past year; some sizeable energy savings; supplemental funding for special activities provided by the Golden Bear Educational Foundation; and legislative grants generously secured for the school by Sen. Patty Ritchie and Assembly Member Addie Russell.”

“The district has several reserve funds as well as an undesignated reserve as permitted by law to address unforeseen circumstances,” Gregory said. “Our unrestricted fund balance is approximately $1.5 million dollars.”

Canton hired a total of 15 new teachers for this school year. Ten of the positions were replacements for teachers who retired or moved out of the district.

Gregory said four positions that had been cut because of budget constraints were restored based primarily on increased student enrollment and curricular needs. These include an elementary reading teacher, a secondary technology teacher, a secondary math teacher, and dean of students.

“One of three new positions added was that of a Kindergarten teacher, as we had an influx of some twenty kindergarten students over the summer” he said. “A second new position was that of a school social worker, who we believe will help us address the social-emotional issues that impede the learning of many students.”

A teaching assistant was also added to help out the school librarian in operating the three school libraries.

For the last several years, the district provided buses after school at 3:30 p.m. for student participating in extracurricular activities or to receive additional academic help from our teachers.

This year the school added bus runs to Monday and Wednesday afternoons as well in order to provide greater flexibility in scheduling activities and to allow for more opportunities for after school help for struggling students, he said.

Canton also reinstated an additional bus run following athletic practices at 5:45 p.m. Monday through Friday to enable students whose families may not have been able to provide transportation for them, and may not have been able to participate in sports for that reason.