William Floyd school district proposes $5M property tax cut

School leaders in the William Floyd school system, one of Long Island’s largest, are proposing a $5 million property tax cut as part of their annual budget package coming up for a vote next month.

Under the tax reduction plan, one of the region's biggest, the district’s proposed tax levy for the 2022-23 school year would drop nearly 5% from the current year’s figure of $102.9 million. Levies are total revenues collected through local property taxation.

Meanwhile, proposed district spending would rise 5.5% next year to a total $265 million. William Floyd officials credited a recent historic boost in state financial aid as the major reason their district is able to expand funding for student services and programs, while also trimming taxes.

“With gas over $4 per gallon, and food, rent and other costs continuing to rise, the board of education wanted to help our community as much as possible,“ board president April Coppola said. “So, with this year’s record increase of state aid, we can ensure our students get the best education possible while providing much-needed tax relief to our community. We live here, too, and our community deserves it.” 

Kevin Coster, the district’s superintendent, noted that William Floyd also is operating with a zero percent tax increase this year. Under a state system that sets cap limits on annual tax hikes, the district would have been authorized to boost taxation a little more than 2.9% this school term and 4% next school year, had it chosen to do so.

“It has always been the goal of the board of education to only ask our residents for what we need as far as a tax levy increase, not what we can get with the tax levy formula,” Coster said.

Board trustees unanimously approved the 2022-23 budget proposal at a meeting on April 12. Local residents will have a chance to vote on the spending plan May 17, which is the date set for statewide voting this year. Coppola and three other incumbents on William Floyd’s board will be running unopposed in that election, according to the district.

William Floyd serves about 8,900 students in southeastern Brookhaven Town, ranking it fifth in enrollment size among the Island’s districts. William Floyd’s taxable wealth is a little more than half the state average, making the latest proposed tax reduction a welcome relief in the minds of many residents.

“That’s nice to hear, definitely. It’s going to help families that are struggling,” said John Sicignano, longtime president of the Mastic Park Civic Association, which has about 100 members living within the school district. “We’re a blue-collar, working-class community.”

Sicignano is manufacturing director for a company that makes military airplane parts.

In setting next year’s tax levy, William Floyd officials noted that their district would receive an extra $22.6 million in state financial aid — an increase of more than 15%. Similar funding increases are going to many other districts on the Island, where overall aid will be up more than $450 million next year.

The funding additions have prompted many individual taxpayers, as well as some business groups, to question whether some of the money should be used to lower taxes.

One such group is the Association for a Better Long Island, which represents many of the region’s real estate developers. Last month, the organization’s executive director, Kyle Strober, described as “astonishing” the fact that most districts are still calling for tax hikes. School representatives noted, on the other hand, that the state’s complicated system of distributing aid money means some districts get double-digit increases while other districts get minimum raises of 3%.

Last week, Strober praised William Floyd’s action.

“Clearly, the William Floyd school district gets it, and wants to do the right thing for the taxpayer,” Strober said. “Such a significant reduction will put money back in the taxpayer’s pocket and possibly spur more economic activity within the community.”

A Newsday review of district tax data over the past 10 years indicates that William Floyd’s proposed cut could set a record or near-record, at least in dollar terms. A preliminary state report shows only two other Island districts considering cuts for 2022-23, and both those reductions are well below 2%.

In 2017-18, a smaller district in Nassau County proposed a cut of more than 15%. But this was a special and complicated case, involving the equivalent of a return to taxpayers of revenues received in lieu of taxes from a shopping mall.