In Amityville school district, outrage — and worry — over teacher cuts

Damaris Hardial, a sixth-grade math and science teacher in the Amityville school district, has other things on her mind these days beside her students' progress in those subjects. She is worried about her job.

Hardial is among 25 teachers who've received notice that they will not have a job in the district after June 30. The school board on Wednesday night approved cutting 47 staff positions, including the teachers, to fill a $3.6 million budget gap.

“My main concern when I think about losing this job is medical coverage for my family, as I am the primary policyholder,” said Hardial, who has taught math and science for seven years, two in Amityville. “I think about how I am going to assist in financially supporting my family, especially because my daughter is in her senior year of high school and is preparing to attend college in the fall.”

The Amityville school board and administration have faced growing outrage and controversy since the school board announced the proposed layoffs last month. The job losses — which also include six pupil personnel staff, six teaching assistants, five monitors, two administrators, two security staff and one custodian — are planned for the end of this school year.

Community advocate Wendy Canestro blamed the deficit on the school board and administration's mishandling of the budget.

“They spend like drunken sailors, like it's an open wallet, regardless of whether they have the money or not,” she said.

She pointed to an independent audit of the district's finances for the 2022-23 school year that concluded its internal controls over budgeting were “ineffective.” Voters had approved a budget of $105 million for that year, which ended last June 30. The audit was submitted to the school board in November.

“The district must review its budgeting procedures to ensure that the annual budget is reasonable and includes all anticipated costs,” said the audit by the accounting firm Cullen & Danowski, based in Port Jefferson.

Superintendent Gina Talbert, who has been with the district for less than a year, has attributed the deficit to increased costs due to more students in charter schools and in special education and BOCES programs. Several grants, including federal pandemic aid, are running out, and higher costs were seen in security, pension and health insurance, she said.

The deficit was caused by overspending in several items in the 2022-23 school year, officials said. Among them:

• Special education, where $1.3 million, or 11.6%, was spent above the budgeted $11.15 million.
• Employee benefits were overspent by $1.06 million, a 6.5% overage of the budgeted amount of $16,149,146, officials said.
• Security costs ran $499,000 over budget, about 70% more than the $713,000 budgeted.
• Charter school costs ran $179,000 over, a 24% overage of the budgeted amount of $745,000, officials said. School districts are required to pay tuition for students who attend charter schools.

Canestro, of Amityville, who said she is considering a run for school board, criticized board members for choosing to cut staff positions, especially so many teachers, when they should trim programs and activities.

“Now [students] are going to be at even more of a disadvantage, with higher classroom counts, overstressed teachers. … [Teachers] are going to be burnt out. People are going to keep leaving,” she said.

Talbert, in a letter to the school community last month, acknowledged the staff cuts will cause an increase in class sizes.

The 25 teachers to be laid off are 7.7% of the 323 full-time teaching staff in five school buildings.

Talbert and school board president Lisa Johnson declined to be interviewed for this story. But in a written response to Newsday, Talbert said: “Other ways of bridging the budget deficit with the least impact to students is still under discussion.”

'Countless uncertainties'

Hardial, who called the decision to lay off staff members “very unfortunate,” said the deficit of $3.6 million should be further investigated and the appropriate people held accountable. 

She worries for her colleagues who will be seeking work, and “the countless uncertainties they may face in the upcoming school year in an already demanding profession.”

Talbert, in the letter to the community last month, said, “Our Board of Education and administration have discussed how to mitigate the operational deficit in ways that are least impactful to student programs and services.”

Officials have said the district's unassigned reserve funds — the accumulation of excess revenue — plummeted from $4.2 million in the beginning of the 2022-23 school year to $686,244 currently to pay for the additional expenditures.

Voters will have the final say over adopting the budget for the 2024-25 year, as well as school board elections, on May 21.

Parents have been railing against the potential cuts.

“The community is outraged with the proposal to cut teachers. We asked the board to reconsider the approach,” said Megan Messmann, who has two children in the school system.

Messmann said she and other parents want a better explanation of how the district landed in such dire financial straits.

“They're very tight-lipped. Every public session is preceded by an executive session,” where the board meets in private, said Messmann, who ran unsuccessfully for the school board last year and is considering another run this year. “Then they come out, run through the vote and there's no public deliberation.”

Danielle McCalvin, who has two children in the schools, said she's worried the loss of teachers and increase in class size will overburden the remaining teachers.

“They're going to put more kids in a room and overload the teachers,” she said. “They're taking away from what kids have been given.”

McCalvin said she also was concerned about the two losses in security staff.

“Security needs to stay. … I want to know how they're going to keep the buildings safe when they're making these cuts,” she said.

Faith Robinson, who has four children in Amityville schools, said she believes the state should appoint a financial monitor over the district. She said she believes the superintendent and school board have lost the trust of the community.

In 'significant stress'

Amityville is among the most financially troubled school districts in the state. 

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced in January that the district is in “significant stress” — the highest level of risk in the state's rating system. 

The district's student enrollment of 2,756 is 59% Latino, 31% Black, 5% white, 1% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 1% Asian or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, according to the state Department of Education. A total of 77% of students are considered economically disadvantaged, according to department data.

The Cullen & Danowski audit provides insight into the district's handling of its money.

“The district's internal controls over budgeting were ineffective,” the audit said. In addition, the district must improve its budget monitoring procedures to “ensure expenditures cannot be incurred when there are insufficient balances in the approved appropriations,” the audit said.

The criticism of the district's handling of the budget appeared on Page 68 of the audit.

Amityville school officials said they've been transparent in outlining the fiscal troubles with the public.

Johnson, the board president, speaking during the meeting Wednesday night, said members carefully reviewed the situation before deciding on the 47 staff cuts. She added that cuts also were made elsewhere in the budget. “We did our due diligence.”

The board reviewed the audit at its November public meeting, and members have said they will have several public meetings to discuss the budget.

Talbert, the superintendent, was hired by the school board last summer. An educator with more than 36 years of experience, she previously served as superintendent for the Wyandanch district. That system has been under a state fiscal monitor since 2020.

Before Talbert, Amityville had an interim superintendent, Edward Fale, who came in after Mary Kelly resigned from the post in 2021. Kelly agreed to a settlement of $230,000 in exchange for her resignation from the district, where she served as superintendent for seven years.

Nakia Wolfe, head of the teachers union, said school officials are not providing a full picture of the district's financial troubles.

“That 100% transparency is not there,” he said of the school board and administration. “They either don't know or don't want to tell. Either way, it's a problem.”

The financial crunch comes as the district and teachers are working out a new contract; the existing contract expired last June, he said.

The district already has lost about 40 teachers since August 2022, he said, and morale has been low. Before the financial crunch, the district and teachers union were not far apart in contract talks, Wolfe said. The announcements of the deficit and staff cuts have changed that, he said.

“This has definitely thrown a wrench into the negotiations,” Wolfe said. “Right now negotiations have stopped.”

Worried about class sizes

The budget deficit and pending job losses have shaken students and faculty, said Kazima Muwwakkil, a senior at Amityville Memorial High School. Students are worried about increased class sizes and that it will be harder to have one-on-one time with teachers, she said.

Customary hallway conversations have turned to which teachers are being laid off, she said.

“It's heartbreaking and distressing,” said Muwwakkil, 18. “The mood is pretty disheartening. … A lot of people are worried.”

Lance Sinatra, head of the district’s custodial, grounds and maintenance staff, said many school districts are facing rising costs and the loss of the federal pandemic aid.

“How come we were not prepared when so many other districts were?” he said. 

School officials said they've been upfront about the financial problems. Olivia Buatsi, assistant superintendent for finance and operations, made a presentation on the budget at the school board's Feb. 14 meeting and a line-by-line analysis at another meeting Wednesday.

Buatsi said a major driver of the deficit is the district's loss of federal pandemic money, which was provided for three years but runs out this fall. That money was used to reduce class sizes and provide more mental health services for students, she said.

In addition, the number of students in charter schools increased from 35 three years ago to over 55 now, she said. And the cost of employee health insurance has risen 65% in recent years, she said. 

The school board has approved an 11-page “correction plan” regarding its handling of finances. The plan was a requirement by the comptroller's office. District officials said they have instituted new procedures to track personnel items in the budget. The district also implemented a purchasing and hiring freeze in January.

In the corrective action plan, auditors pointed to several areas in which the district needed to shore up its budgeting. For instance, the district did not have the required written procedures related to the spending of federal awards. Also, auditors found instances in which purchases had not been approved by a building principal or a supervisor. 

Auditors noted that these issues have been addressed.

The board also has hired financial consultant Carl Fraser to assist with budgeting.

“As the budget is formed, we wanted another set of eyes looking at it,” Johnson said. “We want to make sure we give you clear answers before the board votes on the budget. If the community doesn't have these answers, they can't make a decision.”

With Michael Ebert

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated Damaris Hardial's gender.

By Craig Schneider

craig.schneider@newsday.com@Scraigo

Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.