Without tax hike, Wyandanch could lose all sports

At Wyandanch Memorial High School, football, basketball and baseball aren't just games.

To the contrary, sports are a major inducement to stay in school and out of gangs, according to student athletes who fear their teams may soon be lost. The Wyandanch district's $57-million budget was voted down Tuesday, and school officials warn that a second "no" vote could result in cancellation of all sports next year.

"People wouldn't have anything to do and they'd have to go home - or go out in the streets and find something there," said Jimmy McCloud, 17, a junior and varsity wide receiver on the school's football team.

A teammate, Ricky Parnell, noted that sports achievement is also a frequent ticket to college scholarships in a district where more than 45 percent of students live near or below the poverty line.

"I've been playing football since I was 5 years old - the whole idea was to find a college scholarship," said Parnell, 16, also a junior. "So if Wyandanch doesn't have a football team, what am I supposed to do?"

The 1,900-student Wyandanch district has long ranked as Long Island's poorest school district in terms of taxable wealth. But its current financial woes can be traced to 2008, when the district ran up a budget deficit projected at $4 million and was ordered by the state to cut spending. At the time, local administrators who have since departed blamed the deficit on extra costs required to raise student scores on state tests.

A new school board majority complied. But most of a $4-million rescue package proposed by the State Education Department to help ease Wyandanch's distress never materialized because of the state's own fiscal problems.

This left Wyandanch without any cash reserves. Consequently, the school board announced last month it would have to boost taxes 13.94 percent next year - the highest proposed increase on the Island - just to provide for a relatively modest spending hike of 3.4 percent.

Upset homeowners responded by rejecting the budget, 236 to 147.

Wednesday, board president Denise Baines said the district would put up a reduced budget for a revote next month, with details to be decided Tuesday. She repeated earlier warnings that a second "no" vote could result in the loss of sports and teaching positions, as well as in reduction of full-day kindergarten classes to half-day.

Like her board colleagues, Baines contends that the state education department bears much of the responsibility for Wyandanch's troubles. She adds that the district might be forced to shut down its schools and transfer its mostly African-American students to surrounding districts that are mostly white - a threat similar to one that helped win extra state funding for the Roosevelt district in 2001.

"It's as if we're being punished for what they told us to do," Baines said of state education officials.

State Education Commissioner David Steiner, who took over the department in October, responded Wednesday by noting that decisions regarding state funding of schools are made by Gov. David A. Paterson and state legislators.

"So the Education Department is not in a position to offer financial assistance to any district and we have never done so," Steiner said.