Long Island school budget revote: What to know

Five Long Island school districts will present spending plans with lower tax levy increases for a revote this month, after voters rejected their proposed budgets in May.

Bayport-Blue Point is the lone district still seeking a tax cap override, though at a lower rate than before. Islip and South Country adopted spending plans with tax levy increases equal to their caps, after voters rejected their attempts to exceed the levy limit.

The Three Village and Locust Valley districts also saw their budgets fail in the May 19 vote, even though they did not attempt to pierce their levy caps. School boards in both districts have cut spending in hopes of more voter support.

Rising property taxes was a point of contention this budget season for some residents, including Stony Brook retiree Bruce Raupp.

At a recent listening session held by the Three Village school board, Raupp, who lives on a fixed income with his wife, said their taxes have gone up so high that he’s considering moving out of state. 

“You can't keep on raising the taxes,” he said. “I just can't handle it.”

The revote for the five districts will be held on June 16. Bayport-Blue Point will again require a 60% supermajority for its budget to pass, while the other four need a simple majority of more than 50% of voter support.

Here's what residents need to know ahead of the vote:

Bayport-Blue Point

Residents in this Suffolk district rejected the district's initial budget proposal, which had called for a 2.75% tax levy increase, by a vote of 679 for and 568 against. The 54.45% passage rate fell short of the required 60%.

Board members voted unanimously on May 27 to adopt a new proposal with a 2% levy increase, still higher than its cap of -0.76%. Officials have said they were able to offset part of the increase because they received additional funding when the state budget was adopted last month.

But one longtime resident, speaking at the board meeting, called the plan “insulting,” noting it was similar to the budget that was defeated.

“I've been paying taxes for 50 years," said the woman. "Five kids went through the district. I love it here. You are pushing us out.”

Superintendent Timothy Hearney said in an interview Monday the district has eliminated through attrition about 15 teaching positions, as well as other staffers, since 2024-25.

“We had made all the cuts that we felt that we could make if we were still to offer our students the programs and the activities that we wanted to,” he said. “In this case, it's more of really trying to maintain everything.”

Officials estimated the average homeowner would pay an additional $17.48 per month in property taxes under the new proposal.

To attempt to pierce the tax cap twice in one year can be risky. Elwood did so successfully last year, but that was not the case for Three Village in 2021. The district had to adopt a contingency budget, which froze the tax levy, after two unsuccessful budget votes.

Three Village

That contingency budget was on Superintendent Kevin Scanlon's mind as the school board weighed how to proceed after its budget failed.

Residents last month voted down the district's nearly $245 million spending plan, which called for a 4.54% levy hike — equal to its tax limit for this year.

“The message was sent in 2021, when the budget was voted down twice, that this community is not going to tolerate the same budget being put up again,” Scanlon said at a recent board meeting.

Trustees voted 4-3 at that meeting to adopt a new spending plan that cuts spending by $1.6 million and reduces the tax levy increase to 3.49%. The additional school tax for the average homeowner is estimated to be $36 a month, according to the district.

Scanlon said at the meeting that school officials understood from residents’ feedback that the original levy increase was considered too high and “tone deaf.”

Officials and residents cited other factors that may have also contributed to the budget’s defeat, including a rejected proposition from the Long Island Museum, which sought to raise $500,000 in taxes annually, and controversy over delaying the start time at Ward Melville High School.

Stefanie Werner, mother of a junior at the high school, said she voted no on the first budget in part due to the way two bond propositions were handled this past winter.

Voters in January defeated the propositions, which totaled $123 million. Werner said the timing of the vote, held in “the dead of winter,” eroded trust.

Werner also said she did not believe some of the items included in the propositions, such as $1.8 million to replace a stadium field with synthetic turf, were necessary.

“I don't want contingency,” said Werner, who is a teacher in another district. “But I need them to learn to get [spending] under control.”

Werner said in an interview Monday that she was still on the fence about voting for the new spending plan.

“Obviously I want what's best for the students,” she said. “But they also, again, need to remember that we're paying for it.”

Specific spending cuts will be reviewed at a budget hearing on June 3.

“This is going have an effect on the district in many ways,” Scanlon said. “It's going to be felt by different groups.”

Locust Valley

Since the 2016-17 school year, the Locust Valley budget has risen from $82 million to more than $100 million in the spending plan proposed last month.

“It is hard,” said district resident Mike Scherbner, who voted against the school budget for the first time in two decades. “You don't want to take away the experience from the kids. But every year, you see your taxes go up. I mean, they never go down.”

The district had proposed a 2.1% tax levy increase, below its cap of 2.84%.

Board President George Vasiliou acknowledged the upward trend at a meeting this week but argued it had happened over time.

“There was feedback about the shock of hitting $100 million,” he said at Monday’s board meeting. “It wasn't like last year was $80 million and then suddenly we're jumping to $100 million dollars, right? It's been a slow, really slow trickle behind cost inflation.”

Karen Horoszewski, assistant superintendent for business, noted the district has stayed under or equal to its cap since 2016. Under the new plan adopted Monday, the budget was cut by about $264,000, to $99,987,243. The levy increase dropped to 1.78%.

Horoszewski said the district cut administrative professional development, froze some equipment purchases and restructured some contracts. The district also received slightly more aid in the state budget.

Scherbner's wife, Linda, also rejected the initial budget but said she saw the effort to lower spending and would support the new plan. Her husband, who brought a printed copy of the line-by-line budget to the board meeting, said he needed to review the revised version before making a decision.

“I have to go home and look at the math,” he said. “Honestly, I think there's more that they can take out.”

Islip

Islip’s initial budget, which Superintendent Dennis O’Hara said would have maintained programs, was defeated by a 639-859 vote. Officials had proposed a 2.85% levy hike.

The school board recently voted 6-1 in favor of a new budget of $105 million, with a tax levy increase of 1.82%.

The district's cap had been 2.22% but was lowered after the district opted not to go forward with a $275,000 capital project to replace a greenhouse at the high school.

Under the new levy, the estimated monthly increase in school taxes would be $13.98 for the average homeowner, according to the district’s presentation.

Nearly $433,000 was cut, in part by eliminating summer Regents review and summer curriculum writing. Staffing would be reduced through attrition and cuts would be made to clubs and athletics, mainly by reducing busing for players to go to another school for practice games and equipment upkeep cost.

“The community sent a very clear message that they wanted us to go back and look at the budget,” O’Hara said in an interview Tuesday. “We made reductions to programs that would have as minimum an impact as possible on our students.”

Board President Philip Dineen said he wanted to see the budget pass and believed the lower tax levy would be more palatable to voters.

South Country

After voters overwhelmingly rejected the district’s proposed budget, which included a tax levy increase of 13.45%, South Country board members adopted a new $145 million spending plan. The tax levy would rise by 5.52%, which is the highest the district can go without piercing the cap.

Under the new levy, the estimated additional cost for the average taxpayer would be about $18.50 a month, according to district figures.

The board approved the budget, which cuts an additional $5.7 million in expenses from the May budget, by a vote of 4-3.

The new plan calls for cutting 34 more positions, in addition to the 60 the district had already proposed eliminating for 2026-27. English, math, music and art teachers would be impacted, as well as a guidance director and a technology director.

Programs like band and orchestra would be affected. The district would also cut some AP courses, get rid of junior varsity sports and reduce the district's budget for security and facility maintenance.

The South Shore district has been in turmoil for months as it faced multimillion-dollar deficits and struggled to balance its budgets due to mismanagement and overspending. If the budget fails again, the district will have to cut $4 million more under a contingency budget.