POPLAR RIDGE -- Rachel DeBois came to a Southern Cayuga Central School District Board of Education meeting armed with a question about the long range facilities planning committee.

DeBois, of King Ferry, was among more than 50 community members and district employees Monday to attend the latest community forum held at the high school cafeteria to give district officials some feedback and direction on how to deal with potential cuts to school aid next year.

"Do we have an update from that committee," she asked the district's leadership, "any new facts?"

Superintendent Mary Kay Worth said the committee has been analyzing a study on enrollment trends, which ascertains that enrollment will continue to decline over the next decade, albeit at a much slower rate than other areas of the county.

She said that within the next 10 years, the district will likely be serving between 675 and 725 students and the committee is sifting through the information and trying to understand the district's facilities needs. But she added that it's not a quick process.

"People want to hurry the process along," she said. "But it needs to be a thoughtful process."

All of the committee's meeting minutes and other information can be found on the district's Web site, www.southerncayuga.org.

Southern Cayuga, like every district across the state, is grappling with a significant reduction in education aid as the state is trying to address a shortfall in the next fiscal year's budget. As it currently stands, Southern Cayuga is poised to lose more than $400,000 for next year.

These numbers may change as districts learn more about the federal stimulus plan, which will increase monies in to federal grants -- Title 1, which deals with remediation, and IDEA, designed for special education.

Worth was cautious in talking about these grants, as current rules state that these funds cannot be supplanted into the general fund and can only be used to finance new personnel positions, not existing ones.

"Right now we have to move forward with what we know for sure," she said, "and what we know for sure is the governor's budget until he gives us a new one."

Community members asked questions about transitioning to a single bus run, teachers' contracts and alternative energies. But many people also complained about their high property taxes and what they called "wasteful spending."

"This economy is bad and we need to put a lid on all this spending," Ron Addy, of Genoa, said, who added that he sees buses driving around half full. "We're in a bad time and if we don't put a lid on this, we're going to be in trouble.

"I don't understand everything you're saying, but when I see my taxes, it's too much."

Lisa Morris, of Aurora, added that many of the suggestions the district offered on ways to save money -- eliminate a nurse, the school resource officer, and others -- were the same items put on the table last year, when the original 2008-09 budget was defeated.

"When is the wasteful spending going to stop?" she asked. "You should have taken care of that last year and you didn't, and here we are, a year later, talking about the same thing."

After several more comments, board member Steve Morris responded by saying both Worth and Business Administrator Martha Stevermer scour over all aspects of the budget and make sure there is no wasteful spending while providing students quality education.

"We need to protect what we've got," he said. "When it comes to education, we do it to the best of our ability ... We're trying to please each individual community member, but as a whole we need to make it work."