Sunday’s report on school district enrollments helps illustrate how tricky it is for school communities to piece together budgets from year to year. 

The data show that enrollments are falling statewide, but there is no corresponding dropoff in expenses. Even as they jettison positions, districts are vexed to keep pace with mandated costs like pensions. When district voters go to the polls Tuesday, the average tax levy increase will be 4.6 percent. There are no signs the budget-juggling will get any easier going forward.

A new enrollment study by Newburgh-based business group Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress found flat or falling enrollments in 82 percent of the 94 districts in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, Orange, Sullivan, Ulster, Columbia and Greene counties.

Further drilling down concluded enrollment in Putnam’s six districts would be 14 percent lower in 2020, based upon a complicated formula that considers peak enrollments for each district, going back to the 1990s in some cases.

The declines were 3 percent in Westchester’s 40 districts, including two special-act districts, and 8 percent in Rockland’s eight districts…..

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