WATERFORD — The Waterford-Halfmoon Union Free School District preliminary budget calls for an increase in spending of 3.1 percent and a tax increase of about 2.4 percent next year.

The $18.2 million preliminary 2008-09 budget is $548,286 more than the 2007-08 budget.

Interim Superintendent of Schools James H. LaGoy said the main increases are teacher salaries and employee benefits.

“I’m guessing that our tax rate [increase] will be even lower than what’s proposed,” LaGoy said. “I don’t know what other school districts are doing, but we’re very fortunate to be able to put out a budget like that.”

He said he expects that the final tax increase will be less than 2 percent.

Last year, district voters approved a budget that called for a tax increase of 1.2 percent, but taxes ended up decreasing by 1 percent due to higher-than-expected revenues.

“We’ve been fortunate to have a decent fund balance to apply to reducing taxes. The district has done this for quite a while,” LaGoy said. “Our forecast for the next year and the following year still looks pretty healthy.”

Theresa Feldkamp, the district’s business manager, said that one or two students moving out of the small district can have a big impact on expenses.

“The [school] board has been committed to making this as small an increase as possible and still be able to maintain our programs,” Feldkamp said. “It’s very modest.”

The district has about 940 students in kindergarten through grade 12.

The tax rate for Halfmoon district taxpayers is projected to increase 2.35 percent from $34.34 per $1,000 assessed to $35.15.

District taxes in Waterford will go from $59.45 per $1,000 of assesssed property value to $60.85, an increase of 2.36 percent.

“What people look at is the estimated tax rate,” LaGoy said. “Once you tell them what it is and it’s that low, especially people that have STAR and the enhanced STAR, it looks pretty good to them.”

The district contracts most of its transportation with Folmsbee Transportation, a Waterford busing company.

Feldkamp said that the contract with the company is tied to overall consumer prices, so the recent increase in gas prices hasn’t hit Waterford-Halfmoon as hard as some other districts.

The total transportation cost of $1.2 million next year includes $922,600 contracted to Folmsbee and $276,450 for district buses.

The internal district transportation cost will be about $11,000 lower next year because an experienced bus driver retired, LaGoy said.

Employee benefits are projected to increase from $3.2 million to $3.4 million next year.

Teacher salaries for K-12 are expected to be just under $4.8 million next year, an increase of about $60,000.

“We had some very experienced teachers who left and we hired people at a substantially lower rate,” LaGoy said.

LaGoy said another factor keeping the tax increase low is an estimated increase of $379,000 next year in state aid.

Voters will consider the final version of the budget on May 20.