Center Moriches board lowers tax hike to 2%

Center Moriches' school officials announced last night they are lowering their requested tax hike to 2 percent -- well below the state's 2.95 percent cap -- in an effort to regain public support lost when the district tried unsuccessfully to override the cap on May 15.

The revised $38.9 million budget proposal for the 2012-13 school year would raise spending 6.01 percent. The original defeated budget of $39.4 million would have raised spending 7.4 percent and tax collections 4.56 percent.

"The community has basically said 'Roll up your sleeves and sharpen your pencils' and we have done that," said Superintendent Russell Stewart, who presented the lower tax plan to an audience of about 200 residents -- many of whom applauded the news.

Center Moriches is the seventh -- and last -- district on Long Island to unveil a lower spending-and-tax plan after failing to gain the 60 percent majority vote required to exceed the state's new caps.

Six of those districts, Center Moriches included, now have budget proposals that would keep within caps and need only simple majority votes to gain approval. Elmont's 4.9 percent tax-hike proposal has been reduced from an initial 6.87 percent, but still requires a 60 percent vote because it exceeds the district's 1.89 percent cap.

Revotes are scheduled statewide on June 19.

Center Moriches officials said they have cut $517,000 from their original budget through more than a dozen steps that include renegotiating a bus contract, reducing administrative and secretarial costs and combining some instructional jobs.

During a public comment period that followed, a succession of speakers -- some of them severe critics in the past -- praised school officials for coming in with a lower budget.

"I will support it 100 percent," said Martha O'Brien, 52, a local associate real estate broker and parent who opposed the original tax plan.

Ron Navas, 45, director of a local boys lacrosse program, who backed the original budget but recognized that many others wouldn't, was equally supportive of the revised package.

"I'm pleasantly surprised you went as far as you did," he told school officials. "I'm glad you listened to the community."

On May 15, Center Moriches' original budget was rejected by 1,145 no votes to 719 yes votes -- a rebuff that came as a shock to many. One question raised at last night's meeting concerned school programs that might be cut if the revised budget was voted down. Joseph McHeffey, the school board president, replied he did not want to cite specifics, in part out of concern that this might be mistakenly interpreted as a threat. He added, however, that a second no vote would automatically result in a zero tax increase and force cuts the district had listed before. One of those listed was full-day kindergarten.

O'Brien said that a 2 percent tax increase probably could capture public support.O'Brien, who works as an associate real estate broker, added that any higher increase was unlikely to pass at a time when many residents are struggling to pay for mortgages and taxes on houses that have dropped sharply in value.