Fabius-Pompey Enters Its Last Construction Summer as the $19.1M Project 2026 Points to a September 8 Opening

When Superintendent Lloyd L. Peck opens the doors at 1211 Mill Street in Fabius on Tuesday, September 8, students will walk into the payoff year of a $19.1 million bet their neighbors placed almost three years ago. The Fabius-Pompey Central School District is working through the final scheduled summer of Project 2026, the largest capital program in recent district history, while its new budget carries the first full wave of construction debt and the state aid that offsets it.

The two hill towns that anchor the district sit at the southeastern corner of Onondaga County, where U.S. Route 20 crosses ridgelines above 1,300 feet and school buses cover some of the longest rural routes in the county. About 610 students attend the district’s two buildings, the elementary school on Route 91 and the combined middle school and high school on Mill Street. It is one of the largest public investments either town has put before voters in years.

What voters approved, and when

On December 5, 2023, district residents approved a bond proposition authorizing $19,100,000 in renovations and improvements to the middle school and high school, the elementary school, the bus garage and storage buildings. Polls ran from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. that day at two sites: the middle school and high school at 1211 Mill Street for residents of the towns of Fabius and Cuyler, and Pompey Community Church at 2555 Berwyn Road in LaFayette for residents of the towns of Pompey, LaFayette and Cazenovia. The district administration announced the result in a letter to the community the same day, writing that the project “will focus heavily on the safety and security of not only students and staff, but also community members who visit our facilities and grounds.”

The district named the referendum Project 2026 for a reason. Its building aid reimbursement from Albany spikes in the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years, the window when the state repays districts for approved construction costs. That timing is now arriving on schedule.

The scope, laid out in bid documents, covers security upgrades, a fire alarm system replacement, asbestos abatement, middle school window replacement, high school gymnasium flooring replacement, and renovations to STEAM and agriculture classrooms. The middle school and high school portion alone was valued at $10 million in the ConstructConnect project listing. The district split the work into five prime contracts, with mechanical, electrical and site bids due June 3, 2025, and general and plumbing bids due June 10, 2025.

Three construction seasons, one campus

Peck published the construction phasing on July 24, 2025, as crews mobilized. The first summer brought milling work in the elementary school parking lot and asbestos abatement inside the high school before the fall semester. After the fall 2025 soccer season ended, contractors moved onto the fields, installing what the district described as “new center bleachers, improved walkway and upgraded field lighting,” plus junior varsity dugouts and varsity field fencing. After winter sports wrapped, the gymnasium got its turn, with the district promising “new bleachers and a new floor.”

The same schedule reserved summer 2026, the season now underway, for bus garage parking improvements that crews could not reach in 2025. The plan also calls for a new technology space with what the district calls a “state-of-the-art greenhouse and updated classrooms” to serve its agriculture and STEAM programs, a direct nod to a district where the local Future Farmers of America pipeline runs strong and four Agriculture and Business and Finance students spent an April 2026 day job shadowing at the USDA Farm Service Agency.

The bill, and the aid that follows it

The budget that pays for all of this took effect July 1. Voters passed it on May 19, 2026, by machine count at the same two polling sites used for the bond vote. The approved 2026-27 general fund budget totals $22,793,004, an increase of 9.94 percent over the $20,732,622 budget of 2025-26. That is one of the largest year over year jumps in the district’s modern record, and the budget documents are blunt about the driver: debt service rose $1,245,501 in a single year as serial bond principal and interest payments on the school construction came due.

The other side of the ledger moves almost as fast. Building aid from New York State doubles from $857,263 in 2025-26 to a projected $1,712,926 in 2026-27, an $855,663 increase tied directly to Project 2026. Total state aid climbs from $10,034,506 to a projected $11,199,592, with foundation aid at $6,287,956 and transportation aid at $1,739,327. The district’s own community Q&A notes the building aid surge is temporary, elevated through the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years, and “matched by a corresponding increase in debt service expenditures in those years.”

The tax levy rises 4.99 percent, from $10,059,402 to $10,561,767, according to the district’s Property Tax Report Card filed with the state on April 22, 2026. That follows a 4.89 percent levy increase in 2025-26, the two largest consecutive increases in the district’s published 17 year levy history, where the 10 year average is 2.73 percent.

There is a technical wrinkle in that filing worth pausing on. New York’s tax cap math gave Fabius-Pompey a 2026-27 levy limit of $10,078,514 after permissible exclusions of $483,253, and the district proposed a levy that matched its limit to the dollar. That kept the May 19 vote at a simple majority threshold. A year earlier the district did not have that cushion: its 2025-26 proposal exceeded the limit by $124,033, which under state law required 60 percent approval. Voters delivered 63.5 percent. The total expenditure increase behind this year’s ask is $2,060,382, and the budget documents attribute the bulk of it to the construction debt, rising employee benefit costs and a $387,287 increase in teaching expenses that includes special education placements.

May 19: three propositions, three passes

The May 19 ballot carried three propositions, and all three passed, according to results reported by CNYCentral the night of the vote. Proposition I authorized the $22,793,004 budget. Proposition II authorized the purchase of three diesel buses at a maximum cost of $526,000, raised through a tax levy collected in annual installments under Section 416 of the Education Law. Proposition III returned incumbents Denise Fresina DiRienzo and Eric Exelby to the Board of Education for three year terms running July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2029.

DiRienzo, the board’s vice president, is a Fabius-Pompey alumna with a doctorate in higher education leadership and executive experience at D’Youville University, SUNY Oswego and Cornell. Exelby, in his candidate statement, said he strives “to represent all members of our district, from taxpayers, staff and students fairly.”

The margins were not published for 2026, but the 2025 results show how engaged this small district’s electorate is. In May 2025, the budget passed 517 to 297, a 63.5 percent supermajority, and the bus proposition passed 573 to 243. That election also delivered a shakeup: newcomers Lari Rutherford, with 396 votes, and Rachel Storm-Heasley, with 355, won seats while sitting board president John Repak drew 247 votes and lost his.

A small district with big numbers

Fabius-Pompey educates roughly one tenth the enrollment of a large Syracuse suburban district, and the scale shows up in its classrooms. Federal data for 2024-25 counted 659 students across the two schools, with 66.94 full time equivalent teachers, a student teacher ratio of 9.84 to 1. The district’s tax report card lists public school enrollment at 611 for 2025-26 and an estimated 609 for 2026-27, a slow drift downward that puts a premium on keeping families in the district.

The academic case the district made at its May 5, 2026 budget hearing leaned on outcomes. The graduation rate hit 98 percent in both 2024 and 2025, up from a low of 92 percent in 2018. On the June 2025 Regents exams, 85 percent of Algebra students passed, 84 percent passed Geometry, and every student who sat for Algebra II passed, with 43 percent reaching mastery. Peck and Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Daniel Silky presented the budget together at the middle school and high school library.

Transportation, the quiet backbone of a district that spans five towns across three counties, earned its own headline this year: the Central New York Association for Pupil Transportation named Fabius-Pompey driver Tami Dodge its Bus Driver of the Year, citing her for “creating a welcoming environment for students, greeting them each day with a warm smile, a positive attitude, and genuine care for their well-being.”

What to watch between now and the first bell

The remaining checklist is short but visible. Bus garage parking work is the headline summer 2026 item from the published phasing. The gymnasium, refloored and refitted with new bleachers over the winter, will see its first full season of fall physical education classes and winter basketball. The renovated STEAM and agriculture classrooms and the greenhouse anchor the district’s career and technical pitch to families weighing the hill towns against larger districts down Route 20.

The fiscal watch item lands later: when the temporary building aid rolls off after 2027-28, the district will need the debt service curve and its reserves to line up, a balance Silky’s budget presentations have flagged as a standing goal. The board’s principals for the year ahead are already in place, with Jason Martin leading the middle school and high school and Sasha Rasmussen leading the elementary school.

The calendar between now and opening day is set. Staff report for development days September 2 and 3. Incoming prekindergarten families get their Meet and Greet at 3 p.m. on September 3. Labor Day falls September 7. The first bell of the Project 2026 era rings Tuesday, September 8, 2026.