Voters OK Nassau BOCES buying school, upgrading 2 other schools, selling vacant lot

Voters across the county approved Nassau BOCES' referendum Thursday to buy a school it's rented for decades, sell a vacant plot and inject millions into two other facilities.

The ballot measure — which passed 1,566 to 254 — asked voters to green light the agency’s purchase of Seaman Neck Middle School in Seaford from the Levittown school district for $7.2 million. BOCES currently pays nearly $1 million each year to rent the facility, which serves 142 students with behavioral, developmental, emotional and learning disabilities, Newsday previously reported.

The referendum also included the Board of Cooperative Educational Services' plan to sell 2.7 acres of unused land on Hasket Drive in Syosset for $6.8 million to 150 Oak St Holding LLC, the buyer listed on the ballot measure, Newsday has reported. The final part of the referendum regarded spending $5.7 million on renovations to the Jerusalem Avenue School in North Bellmore and the Rosemary Kennedy Center in Wantagh. New entrance vestibules are to be built at both buildings and an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant elevator will be installed at the Jerusalem Avenue facility.

"The support of Nassau County voters speaks volumes about the value our community places on education,” Nassau BOCES Superintendent Larry Leaven said in a statement emailed to Newsday late Thursday. “Together, we are creating stronger, safer schools that reflect our shared commitment to the success of every student.”

The ballot items “will be funded using proceeds from the sale of the vacant property and/or the Nassau BOCES Capital Fund, which was created specifically for facility improvements,” reads a BOCES webpage dedicated to Thursday’s vote. “No additional cost will be incurred by local taxpayers or the 56 component school districts.”

BOCES has rented the Seaman Neck Middle School since 1997, Levittown school district Superintendent Todd Winch told Newsday on Thursday ahead of the referendum’s approval. Nearly 80% of Levittown residents who voted on a referendum in May approved the sale to BOCES, “which I think is one of the highest passing rates we’ve got on any referendum we’ve ever done,” Winch said.

The Levittown district does not want to fund upgrades to the 70-year-old middle school’s infrastructure when “we have 10 of our own schools that we’re operating, that we’re investing taxpayer funds into,” Winch said.

“They want to invest money into it,” he added of BOCES. "They want to make it more state-of-the-art. As a landlord, that’s not something that we’re going to want to do.”

The money from the future sale of the building will go into a tax reserve and fill the hole left by BOCES’ rent payments in the coming years, Winch said.

“Over the next 10 years, we have to adjust the budget so that we’re not reliant on that annual income,” he added.

The purchaser of the vacant Syosset property will use it as “a facility where construction and demolition materials are going to be stored, primarily concrete, rock and asphalt temporarily collected, sorted and then … disposed of offsite,” Nassau BOCES spokeswoman Angela Marshall previously told Newsday.

Newsday's Dandan Zou contributed to this story.