Four LI school districts consider budget revote after rejection from residents
Residents vote on school budgets. Credit: James Carbone
Four Long Island school districts that failed to pass budgets Tuesday have scheduled meetings this week to decide on their next steps, which include potential revotes on June 15.
Planned meetings run from Tuesday through Thursday for the districts of Wantagh, Three Village, Bridgehampton and Northport-East Northport. Statewide, only five budgets out of 665 were rejected by voters, according to the New York State School Boards Association.
Wantagh, Three Village and Bridgehampton were the only systems out of 21 statewide that fell short in efforts to muster 60% voter majorities to override their state tax caps.
The localized concentration of such districts prompted one analyst, Peter Warren of the Empire Center for Public Policy, to observe that "New York's tax cap did flex its muscle on Long Island."
Northport-East Northport and the Carmel system in the lower Hudson Valley were the only two districts where spending plans were voted down for reasons other than disputes over tax caps. Northport voters interviewed by Newsday said opposition there sprang from a district decision in April to close two elementary schools.
Here’s the week’s meeting schedule on the Island:
Wantagh — The school board meets at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the high school. Attendance will be both in-person and livestreamed. Superintendent John McNamara said a decision is expected toward the end of the meeting, after trustees review results of a community survey and budget options.
Wantagh originally proposed an $83.5 million budget with a 3.82% tax hike that would have exceeded the district’s state cap restriction. The "yes" vote in initial balloting was 50.8% of the total, less than the 60% required.
Three Village — The board opens its meeting to the public around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday for budget review and discussion, following a closed-door executive session at the North Country Administration Center. The meeting will be conducted both in person and online.
Three Village initially proposed a $222.7 million budget carrying a 1.85% tax hike that would have exceeded the district’s state cap restriction. The "yes" vote in the first round of balloting was 57.7% of the total, less than the 60% required to pierce the cap.
Bridgehampton — The board meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the high school, with attendance in person. Ronald White, the board president, said the panel is expected to reach a decision on a revote at the meeting.
Bridgehampton originally proposed a $20.7 million budget with an 8.93% tax hike that would have exceeded the district’s state cap restriction. The "yes" vote in initial voting was 59.29% of the total, just short of the 60% required.
Northport-East Northport — The board meets at 7 p.m. Thursday at Northport High School for a budget discussion. The session will be conducted both in person and on Zoom.
The district initially proposed a $174.7 million budget with a 0.75% tax increase that required a simple majority to pass. The plan narrowly missed passage, with a vote of 1,902 to 2,069.
Districts experiencing budget defeats have the choice of revoting on the same budget, revoting on a lower budget or skipping the revote and adopting a so-called contingency budget that freezes taxes for the next year. The latest round of voting was for spending plans covering the 2021-22 year, which begins July 1.
Lorraine Deller, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, said holding revotes is a far more common choice than going straight to contingency.
"Any school district and community that has had to operate under a contingency budget would not want to go through that again," said Deller, noting that this often involves cuts in staff and services. "Sometimes, it takes years to get back on a firm footing."
Warren, of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany, speculated that the concentration of districts with rejected budgets on the Island might have reflected the region’s high cost of education, which he pegged at an average of nearly $33,000 per pupil annually.
"The thing that jumped out at me is that spending is high on Long Island even relative to New York State's, which is the highest in the nation," said Warren, who is the Empire Center’s director of research.
Regional school leaders, in response, said the relatively high cost of education reflected the region’s overall cost of living.
John Hildebrand is Newsday's senior education writer and has covered school news and policy issues affecting Long Island for more than 40 years.
