Hicksville School Voters Guide 2010

VOTING

7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday at seven schools: Burns Avenue, Dutch Lane, East Street, Fork Lane, Lee Avenue, Old Country Road and Woodland Avenue.

THE BUDGET

The district is proposing a budget of $114,172,211 for the 2010-11 school year, a 2.91 percent increase over the current budget of $110,943,478. The local tax levy would rise to $93,333,925 from $90,201,891, an increase of 3.47 percent.

School taxes on the average home assessed at $913 would be $4,451, an increase of 3.46 percent over the current $4,302.Teacher salaries are currently being negotiated for a contract that expires in June.

Eight teacher posts and one administrator position would be eliminated under the proposed budget. The district also plans to eliminate capital projects and its summer elementary academic intervention program. It also made cuts in textbooks, supplies, field trips and staff development, among other areas.

There are two other referendums on the ballot.

The first asks voters to create the Energy Efficiency Capital Reserve Fund, which would use a $978,000 surplus from the 2009-10 budget to pay for new lighting, doors, roofs and other changes to school buildings.

The second asks voters whether a tax should be levied to appropriate $50,000 for the Hicksville Gregory Museum for educational services.

District website:

hicksvillepublicschools.org

THE CANDIDATES

Incumbent Susan Powell is running unopposed. Brenda Judson and James Mott are running for the seat of Alesia Sommers, who is not seeking re-election. Both seats have three-year terms.

Brenda Judson

BACKGROUND: Judson, 52, is a senior manager in the federal government. She has an associate degree in liberal arts from Nassau Community College and is studying for her bachelor's degree at Queens College. She has two children, 17 and 16, who attend the district high school.

ISSUES: Judson said her primary focus is cost containment. She wants to look at ways to reduce the budget without cutting programs, such as sending report cards electronically rather than mailing them. Judson also said she hopes to integrate technology more and increase instruction of languages like Mandarin Chinese in earlier grades. She will push for "class sizes that are feasible, but reasonable. You can't have it all," she said.

James Mott

BACKGROUND: Mott, 47, works in corporate security and is a retired New York Police Department detective. He and his wife, Anne, have three children, one of whom graduated from the district and two of whom attend district schools.

ISSUES: Mott said he decided to seek a school board seat because he is troubled by the class sizes in his children's classrooms. "There's too many kids in each class," Mott said. "It's very tough for kids to remain focused on the lesson plan." Reducing class sizes would help the district's test scores, Mott said. He also said he would seek to get more out of the district's current funds.