What every local school board member should know about the BOCES budget

On Board Online • June 9, 2025

By Jeffrey Matteson

Every day, more than 50,000 New York State students attend Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) instructional programs. If the collective BOCES were a school district, this enrollment number would make it the second largest public school in the state behind New York City. Yet, many educators and board members have never been given a proper orientation or gained a complete picture of the purpose and value of your local BOCES.

Since their formation in 1948, the mission of BOCES has expanded. They provide shared services in the form of:

• Career and technical education (CTE).
• Special education.
• Alternative education.
• Professional development.
• Administrative support for school districts' back-office operations, coordination of health and safety requirements and purchasing.

In addition, there are hundreds of other unique cooperative services that BOCES have created in response to district needs.

We are fortunate to live in one of the few states that incentivizes the sharing of these services through reimbursements to make them affordable for all districts, especially those with the greatest financial needs. In the last fiscal year, these reimbursements totaled more than $1.3 billion.

In my experience, newly appointed school administrators and newly elected school board members are often confused when they first see BOCES items in a school budget. They tend to see many lines of expenses and fail to notice a single revenue line labeled "BOCES Refund/BOCES Aid," which typically covers a large portion of that outlay. Likewise, they may not understand BOCES budgets, which are different from district budgets.

Here are 10 things everyone in local school leadership should understand about BOCES:

1. BOCES are set up on a business model that builds a budget around the sale of shared services established through cooperative service agreements (CoSers) between at least two entities.
2. Each CoSer has its own standalone budget. Like district budgets, CoSer budgets have administrative, program and capital portions.
3. Each CoSer budget becomes part of the BOCES budget but is self-contained; expenditures cannot move outside of their intended purpose. In other words, money cannot be transferred between CoSers.
4. The BOCES has an administrative budget that funds the central administration of the BOCES (including the BOCES board). Annually, this budget is voted on by school boards of the BOCES' component school districts. A majority of the local boards must support the administrative budget or the budget increase will be $0 for the ensuing year.
5. The BOCES administrative budget has a unique feature: all BOCES retiree benefits are paid for out of this budget. So, while the administrative budget pays for a very small portion of employee expenses (they are in the CoSer budgets), it pays 100% of retiree expenses. This explains why a BOCES administrative budget may be around 10% of total expenses, while a school district's administrative expenses typically are only 3% to 5% of total expenses.
6. The retiree benefit obligations remain even if a BOCES administrative budget is voted down. Paying for these constitutionally protected benefits when the budget is rejected will require cuts to other portions of the administrative budget. Therefore, voting down the BOCES administrative budget will result in the loss of BOCES central office personnel.
7. The CoSers associated with the BOCES' program budget are not voted on by school districts as one district does not have the authority to tell another school district which CoSers they can purchase through BOCES.
8. The BOCES' capital budget accounts for leases and capital expenses that will occur that year.
9. You will see entries for BOCES aid for services that will be provided by the BOCES. This represents state aid that goes to school districts and not to the BOCES.
10. BOCES do not receive state aid, although they can receive grant funding for certain services (such as free and reduced-price lunch).

There is much more to this conversation, and I encourage all school board members to connect with your local BOCES for an orientation and a visit. In addition to serving your children of all ages and abilities, they serve as a regional leader in workforce development and have deep connections with business and industry. For members of the public, they are a community resource that serve as a great equalizer.

BOCES should be thought of as an extension of our local districts. Although they do not award credit or diplomas, their credit-bearing coursework has led to thousands of high school graduates in the last 75+ years. BOCES are truly an essential partner for school districts and school boards.

Jeffrey Matteson is senior deputy commissioner of the State Education Department. He was previously district superintendent of Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES.