$24 million vote on 13 October to replace the flooding bus garage

What happened

Voters decide two propositions on Tuesday 13 October 2026, noon to 8 p.m. at the bus garage. Proposition 1, $22,750,000, builds a new bus garage on the high school campus and pays for a new elevator and boilers at the junior-senior high school and a roof recoating, new car park, new elevator and a secure main-entrance vestibule at Townsend Elementary. Proposition 2, $1,332,000, adds a paved drop-off loop at the front of Townsend and only passes if Proposition 1 does. State building aid would cover $18,111,275 of Proposition 1, with $1,780,700 from the district's capital reserve, $552,072 from the Catskill Watershed Corporation and an $805,000 FEMA flood-buyout offer for the old garage, leaving a local share of $1,500,953 - about $6.38 a year per $100,000 of a home's market value.

Why it matters to families

This is the largest decision in front of Walton voters in years and it would run until the end of 2028. The district says the existing garage sits in the regulatory floodway, has flooded repeatedly, and by law cannot be elevated or floodproofed, which caps how much may be spent repairing it; board members described a roof that leaks onto radios and cannot be fixed. The Townsend work - a secure entrance vestibule, a new elevator and a drop-off loop - would change how children get into the elementary school every day. Nothing is decided until the vote.

The evidence

The district's September 2026 capital project newsletter sets out both propositions, the scope at each building, the funding sources and the local share, the floodway restriction and the construction timeline; the updated community presentation of 22 September 2026 carries the same figures with a repair-versus-replace comparison.

The source