The weird thing about New York, which I haven’t gotten used to in the 40-odd years I’ve lived in this state, is that you get to vote on school spending but not on most municipal spending.

This comes to mind because two Fulton County school districts will have referendums next week on capital spending projects. Gloversville will vote on a $40 million plan from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday, at the high school gymnasium and Bleecker Town Hall. Mayfield will vote on a $19 million plan from noon to 7 p.m., Wednesday, in the high school gymnasium.

If you’ve lived in New York all your life, you probably accept that This Is How It’s Done. What I’ve seen over the years is voters often take out their frustration on school spending, when the cause of their frustration was everything but.

In the early and mid-1990s, insurance costs were blowing through the roof faster than Willie Wonka’s great glass elevator. (That’s a literary reference; look it up.) Municipal governments passed the increase on to taxpayers; what else could they do?

But school budgets failed in record numbers because voters were mad, and the only accessible target was the one public budget they could vote on: school districts.

I watched as districts eliminated all but mandatory busing, killed extracurricular activities, limited sports and ended field trips. Parents were outraged, but those were about the only places schools could cut.

Do I think that’s going to happen next week? Hard to say. Most school votes are in May, and municipal elections are in November, so a December vote is likely to have a lower turnout — only the most committed voters will show up. Maybe that’s parents who want to improve their kids’ safety and comfort; maybe it’s retirees whose kids have graduated or singles who don’t have kids, so school spending isn’t a priority.

Officials at both school districts stress — many times in every conversation — the projects rely on state aid, capital reserve funds and the extra revenue from paying off older debt. They’d have no effect on the property tax rates.

That’s a bit of salesmanship, but given the lesson of the ‘90s, I can see why. It’s also accurate to say that if the districts didn’t spend the money, paying off the old debt could go to reducing the property taxes — but not as much as you may think.

In both districts, state aid pays for the vast majority of the cost, and the retired debt accounts for perhaps 10% of the total cost. So the savings would be less than you might think.

Cycling the debt that way makes a certain sense, which you could understand if you think of school buildings like your house. The roof needs to be replaced every now and then, and boilers and furnaces wear out, eventually. Older windows get drafty and maybe the siding needs some help. (Don’t let my wife see this, or I’ll never be able to retire.)

Cycling debt can act a lot like a home equity line of........

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