BALLSTON SPA — The Ballston Spa Central School District has $1.4 million budgeted for IT support services this year and anticipates spending another $1.5 million next year. 

Much of this increase in funds is due to cyber security enhancements, said Clerk of the Board and Records Access Officer Brian Sirianni during a budget development presentation at the March 6 Board of Education meeting. “Cybersecurity is just top of the mind, every day, every way,” Sirianni said.

To help with cybersecurity issues, the district hires multiple outside consultants. “We rotate through various groups to get more information from various companies,” Sirianni said, “so that we’re not just hearing the same things.” The district has nearly 4,600 Chromebooks and more than 1,000 desktop computers to safeguard. 

According to the Board of Education’s policy manual, the district is “committed to maintaining the security and privacy of student data and teacher and principal data and will follow all applicable laws and regulations for the handling and storage of this data in the district, and when disclosing or releasing it to others, including, but not limited to, third-party contractors.”

A November 2023 case study by the computer software company Faronics reported that the implementation of Deep Freeze, a software utility, resulted in an 80% reduction in software-related issues and system crashes across the district. Faronics called the Ballston Spa Central School District “a testament to strategic IT solutions’ power.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Skidmore College baseball team opened its season with a pair of victories against St. Joseph’s University Brooklyn at the Verrazano Babe Ruth Field in Staten Island on March 3. 

The first game featured a three-run home run from Sam Kornet. Reliever Christian Giresi notched six strikeouts while earning the save. The Thoroughbreads finished with a 6-5 win. In game two, Skidmore dominated, 17-1. Freshman outfielder Owen Roy hit a grand slam in his collegiate debut. St. Joseph’s pitching was unruly throughout the contest, resulting in 12 walks and 7 hit-by-pitches. 

The team next headed south for the Gene Cusic Classic in Fort Myers, Florida, where they lost both games of a double-header to Haverford College on March 10. The first game was a narrow 2-1 defeat, but Skidmore was blown out 20-6 in the second contest. 

On March 11, the Thoroughbreads eked out a razor-thin, extra-innings 10-9 victory against Wisconsin Lutheran. The game had a wild conclusion. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 10th, sophomore Eddie Galvo reached first base with a single, scrambled to second after a wild pitch, stole third, and then ran home for a walk-off win.

As of press time, Skidmore was 3-2 on the year. Sam Kornet had been stellar thus far, earning a 1.402 OPS across all five games. Jaden Torrado, a senior outfielder from the Bronx, was also off to a great start, with 2 doubles, a triple, and a 1.158 OPS. 

On the pitching front, senior Ameer Hasan has led the way with a 2.89 ERA in 9.1 innings. For his efforts, Hasan was named to the Liberty League Honor Roll.

Skidmore will have a busy schedule this week, playing a double-header against Rhode Island College on March 13, a game against Franklin and Marshall on the 14th, and two more games on the 15th against Wisconsin Lutheran and Ohio Wesleyan. The team will wrap up its trip to Florida against the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford on Saturday.

Skidmore’s first home game will be on Friday, March 22 against Bard College at the David Alexander Castle Diamond in Saratoga Springs.

Skidmore had been scheduled to begin their season on March 2 at Baruch College, but the game was canceled. Another scheduled game against SUNY Oneonta on March 6 was postponed.

TAMPA — Kevin Smith, a native of East Greenbush and a graduate of Columbia High School, grew up watching New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter on TV. Now, Smith may have a chance to play at Jeter’s position in the Bronx. 

“Every kid growing up in New York grows up watching the Yankees,” Smith told YES Network’s Jack Curry on Monday. “I was one of those kids watching Jeter every night.”

Smith has been with the Yankees throughout spring training in Tampa, but a recent injury suffered by Oswald Peraza has increased Smith’s odds of making the team as a backup shortstop. Smith is among a handful of infielders with major-league experience vying for the job. So far this spring, he’s gotten 20 at-bats, the seventh most of any Yankee. Last week, he hit an RBI single against the New York Mets.

Smith is primarily known for his defensive abilities, and has said he can play short, third, or second base. A 2022 Baseball America scouting report said that Smith’s “power and defensive skill set could allow him to stick around as a utility player.”

“I’m just trying to have the best spring that I can, have the best day and do the best work that I can, day in and day out, and let the chips fall where they may,” Smith told Curry.

BALLSTON SPA — As legendary (and fictional) dodgeball coach Patches O’Houlihan once said, “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.” Luckily, no wrenches were thrown at the Ballston Spa Middle School’s 8th Grade Dodgeball Tournament. 

More than 115 students across 19 teams participated in the event. This year’s winner had the creative team name, “I Paused My Game To Be Here!”

SARATOGA SPRINGS —In the wake of Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran’s proposed short-term rental regulations, an opposition group called the Saratoga Springs Rental Rights Alliance (SSRRA) has been formed. In a press conference on the steps of City Hall on Monday morning, the SSRRA said the city should “slow down, stop, and think before proceeding with proposed short-term rental regulations.” 

In a statement, the group called for a reconsideration of both the proposed $1,000 biannual registration fee and the requirement that rental units be “owner occupied.” The SSRRA also supported the creation of a “cross-sectional working group to examine the proposed regulations and propose agreeable changes.”

Spokesperson Anna Smith, a local mortgage broker, told Saratoga TODAY that her group was created by a dozen or so “passionate” speakers from a city council public hearing two weeks ago. Since then, the SSRRA Facebook group has accumulated more than 400 members, and its Change.org petition opposing “rushed” short-term rental legislation collected more than 1,100 signatures.

Smith disputed Commissioner Moran’s assertion that city law renders short-term rentals illegal. “The way that [the law] reads, it does not appear to apply to actual short-term rentals,” Smith said. “It would be more of a boarding house kind of situation.”

City law defines a “rooming house” as “a single-family or two-family private residential structure, owner-occupied or under the supervision of a resident manager, in which rooms are made available to lodgers for compensation. Rooming houses shall provide lodging to people for a rental period of no less than 28 consecutive days.”

Moran has said that this law means that any rental under 28 days is not allowed. The SSRRA said in its statement that “short-term rentals are not, and have never been, illegal in the City of Saratoga Springs.”

Smith also disputed Moran’s belief that the city would be better off regulating itself rather than waiting for state-mandated regulations. “If you read the state legislation, it’s actually more lax than what Dillon Moran is proposing,” Smith said. “Right now, I would rather go with the state rules.”

Governor Kathy Hochul’s executive budget plan called for sales taxes to be collected on vacation rentals. The proposal was supported by Airbnb, but it remains to be seen if or when it will become law. According to Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi, Saratoga Springs does not currently collect any sales or occupancy taxes on short-term rentals.

Other local organizations, such as the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, took a more moderate stance on Moran’s proposals. In a statement, Chamber President Todd Shimkus said he agreed that short-term rentals should be subjected to some regulations, but also said that the $1,000 registration fee was too high. “[Short-term rentals] are a business and city zoning must balance the legitimate concerns of people living in residential neighborhoods where some [short-term rentals] – mostly those operated by absentee landlords – cause nuisance issues related to traffic, parking, noise, and trash,” Shimkus said.

One study from the American Economic Association, which was established in Saratoga Springs in 1885, said “there is some evidence that short-term renters can create a nuisance and disrupt year-round residents.” But Smith said that laws are already in place that “can be leaned on in that situation.”

Commissioner Moran has previously promised to address some of the public’s concerns. For now, Moran said that public hearings on short-term rentals “will remain on the agenda until we vote and conclude this matter.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Springs City School District is expected to spend $1.7 million on buses for the upcoming school year, and the state government’s looming electric bus mandate will likely yield “eye-popping” costs down the road.

At the February 29 Board of Education meeting, Assistant Superintendent for Business Robert “Bobby” Yusko laid out the district’s proposed 2024-2025 bus bond. The purchase is set to include five 66-passenger buses, three 66-passenger buses with luggage compartments, two 35-passenger buses, and one more 25-passenger bus with six wheelchair spots.The total cost will be $1.723 million. 

But those figures will likely be dwarfed by the sums needed to transition the district’s entire fleet to electric vehicles, which the district will need to begin doing in 2027. None of the planned 2024-2025 bus purchases will be electric. 

“A regular electric bus as we know it today is about $400,000, so it’s eye-popping,” Yusko said. “We also know on top of purchasing the vehicles themselves to the tune of $400,000 a piece, there will be significant capital improvement upgrades that will be required as a result of this mandate.”

Yusko said he was hesitant to provide an estimate of the total costs of converting a fleet of more than 100 buses to zero-emission vehicles because “there’s so much more information we still need to uncover.”

“If nothing happens in Albany in terms of any legislative action,” Yuko said, “this is the letter of the law, and we will have to start doing whatever we can to make that transition.”

SARATOGA SPRINGS — At a February 29 Board of Education Meeting, Dr. Michael Patton, Saratoga Springs’ Superintendent of Schools, said that the district had received an “incomplete,” preliminary report from the Harris Beach law firm regarding allegations made against Saratoga’s athletic program. 

Dr. Patton said that attorneys from Harris Beach needed additional information from the district in order to complete the report. The final report is expected to be submitted “sometime within the next two weeks.” Once received by the district, the report will be released to the public. 

The review stems from claims of “a toxic culture of alleged abusive coaching” in a legal complaint filed in October of last year. Girls’ varsity cross-country and indoor track coaches Art and Linda Kranick were at the center of the allegations. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Springs High School softball team is in for a challenging season. The squad will be competing against the largest schools in the area, thanks to its new AAA classification. “It’s going to be very competitive across that AAA class,” said Coach Geoffrey Loiacono. “Our league,” Loiacono said, “is a grind, day in and day out. There are no guaranteed games across the board.”

Like any high school team, the Blue Streaks have their sights set on capturing a title. In 2022, they were Section 2 champions. But getting back to the top will not be easy. “You’ve got to play your best every day or you’re definitely going to get beat,” Loiacono said.

Luckily, some players from that championship team are back and ready to deliver. “Our senior class is very strong,” Loiacono said. Sarah Decker, Natalie Conroy, and Olivia Tetreault make up a group of seniors that have been playing at the varsity level for several years. “They’ve known that caliber of play,” Loiacono said.

The Blue Streaks finished 14-8 last season. They won 11 of their first 12 games, displaying serious firepower in a whopping 20-2 victory against the Schenectady Patriots in early April. But the team lost its steam in the second half of the year, losing competitive contests to Shenendehowa, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, and Liverpool.

“It’ll be an all-out team effort to get back to the championship game,” Loiacono said. Fans can get a glimpse of this year’s team during its first scrimmage game on March 18 against Schuylerville. The first regular season game will be on March 28, when the Blue Streaks face off against Columbia in a non-league game. 

For a full schedule, visit togasoftball.weebly.com/calendar.html.