School budgets pass overwhelmingly
DESPITE widespread tax discontent, Long Island voters approved school budgets in large numbers last night - a relief for many local school officials who had cut staffing and other costs in bids for public support.
With all 124 districts reporting, 114 passed - a passage rate of 92 percent. Budgets were defeated in Westbury, East Rockaway, Elwood, Garden City, Levittown, Port Jefferson, West Babylon, West Hempstead, Wyandanch and Herricks - the last by a single vote.
The passage rate is better than average, though not as high as last year's 97 percent.
Despite their ballot victories, school officials said they were braced for further fiscal cuts next year, due to the potential end of federal stimulus money that has largely compensated up to now for losses of state financial aid.
"We have a lot more work to do - we're not done yet," said Kim Phillips, president of East Islip's school board. The district's $100.8-million budget passed handily, and a board candidate backed by a local taxpayer group, Philip Montuori Sr., lost his bid for election by a narrower margin.
Stakes in this year's vote were high: Hundreds of dollars in extra taxes for homeowners in districts where budgets passed, versus increased teacher layoffs, larger classes and losses of programs ranging from music to sports where budgets failed.
In Wyandanch, where the budget went down, 236 to 147, school officials have said that a second rejection during revotes next month could force the district to cancel all sports - a grim prospect in a low-income community where many students depend on sports achievement for college scholarships.
"I'm telling you, we may have to close the schools down because our students are entitled to an education," said Denise Baines, the school board president who won re-election.
Divisions in voting affected families as well as school districts. Michael Leo of Shirley voted against a proposed $200-million budget in the William Floyd district, while his wife, Helen, voted in favor - and the budget did pass. Spending will rise 2.75 percent under the plan, and taxes 8.53 percent, even though the district plans to save money by eliminating 150 staff positions and reducing full-day kindergarten to half-day.
"I'm not going to pay $5 million more and not get anything for it," said Michael, who has been unemployed for nearly two years.
But his wife said that it is important to educate children properly. The couple's own children are grown.
"I don't like to see the kids get hurt," Helen Leo said.
Like William Floyd, most of the Island's other 123 districts are trimming staffs and holding next year's proposed spending relatively low - to an average increase of 2.36 percent. But projected tax hikes are significantly higher - an average 3.41 percent, or more than a percentage point above the regional inflation rate.
Lindenhurst, for example, plans to cut about 40 teaching positions next month, to hold down next year's cost increase to less than 1 percent on a $137-million budget. Even so, the district projects a 3.87 percent tax hike.
School administrators in Lindenhurst and other districts point out that Gov. David A. Paterson has called for cutting the Island's school aid by $172.6 million - or 1.6 percent of the region's total school revenues. Meanwhile, state lawmakers are more than a month past their deadline for either accepting Paterson's plan or adopting an aid package of their own.
As a result, school leaders explained that they have been forced to project higher property tax increases than they would like, to compensate for anticipated state aid cuts.
Many Lindenhurst residents found this convincing and passed the budget. Ed Meinhold, a Lindenhurst resident and retired BOCES instructor, contends that negative votes simply increase school costs in the long run, by forcing districts to postpone building maintenance and other needs that produce bigger problems in the future.
"Basically, the budget supports the kids, and I'm all for the kids," Meinhold said.
Galvanized by public discontent over government spending in general, local taxpayer groups and tea party organizers campaigned on behalf of favored school board candidates in more than a half-dozen districts Islandwide.
Teacher unions and parent groups rallied behind their own candidates as well, in efforts to save jobs and student services ranging from Advanced Placement courses to varsity sports.
