Voters across the state headed to the polls Tuesday to decide on whether or not to approve school districts budgets. North Syracuse had one of the highest tax increases in Central New York. Our Katie Gibas has been following that district and joined us with more.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

NORTH SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- North Syracuse voters did approve the school district's budget. It was passed by a more than 1,200 votes. But it calls for both position cuts and a tax increase.

The budget calls for a 4.23 percent tax increase, which is under the district’s allowable tax cap. That equals about an $89 increase on a $100,000 home.

But that comes after the town-wide reassessment that raised many people's taxes last year.

The budget also calls for nearly 40 position cuts, many of which are through layoffs. This comes on top of nearly 200 position cuts in the last couple of years.

The superintendent says it was a stressful budget that cuts staff and programs, but one that she believes balances the needs of students, while taking into account the burden of a tax increase.

"What we worked hard to do was to ensure that we were educating the community about what the numbers were, educating the community on the type of programming we have here in North Syracuse, educating the community on what it would mean for our students if we would have to cut at the core of academics and enrichment," Superintendent Kim Dyce Faucette said.