Long Beach School Voters Guide 2010

VOTING

7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday at East, West, Lido and Lindell schools, as well as 225 W. Park Ave., the Point Lookout Old Firehouse and the Martin Luther King Center. Temple Emanu-El is not a polling place this year because of a religious observance. Voters who typically cast ballots at Temple Emanu-El are to go to East School instead.

THE BUDGET

The proposed budget for the 2010-11 school year is $116,471,564, a 1.59 percent increase over the current budget of $114,644,697. The proposed tax levy would rise by 1.93 percent, from $87,282,964 to $88,965,564.

School officials declined to estimate the amount of school taxes on the average house in the district, saying the information was not available.

The proposed budget includes teacher salary raises of 2.75 percent and step increases of 2 percent. The district plans to launch an International Baccalaureate program and expand its foreign language instruction.

Two other propositions are on the ballot. One would spend $2.05 million from the district's capital reserve fund, at no additional cost to taxpayers, to replace the high school pool's filtration and disinfection system, and to work on the roof at the middle school. Some $755,000 of the cost may be reimbursed by the state. The other proposition is for a library budget of $3,227,173.

District website: lbeach.org

THE CANDIDATES

Incumbent Lynn Gergen and challenger Roy Lester are running for one seat with a term of three years.

Lynn Gergen

BACKGROUND: Gergen, 64, is board president. A Long Beach native, she graduated from district schools and studied at Syracuse University. After working as a producer and director in Los Angeles, she returned in the 1980s to Long Beach, where she and her husband, Joe, raised two children who graduated from public schools. Before election to the board in 2007, Gergen served on the district budget advisory committee for more than 10 years and curriculum council for six. She's also past president of the Central Council PTA and co-president of two other local parent-teacher associations.

ISSUES: Gergen highlighted her initiatives on behalf of Long Beach students during the past 20 years, including her role in launching a creative-writing class at the high school. Gergen said she's a conservative fiscal steward and said the proposed budget's 1.9 percent tax levy hike was "among the lowest on Long Island, and we've still been able to maintain staff and increase programs." She said the teachers' contract, approved in October, included greater teacher contributions to health insurance and increased after-school help by teachers. Gergen said that to improve efficiency of board meetings, trustees are considering cutting public comment from five minutes per agenda item to five minutes at the start and end of meetings.

Roy Lester

BACKGROUND: Lester, 60, served three terms on the board, losing a bid for re-election last year after serving as its vice president. A real estate bankruptcy attorney, he and his wife, Nancy, have a son in the middle school and two daughters who graduated from the high school. Lester is a lifelong resident and graduate of the district. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a law degree from the University of San Diego.

ISSUES: If elected, Lester said, he would be the only board member with a child who attends district schools. Lester, who said he's fiscally conservative, criticized the board's approval of a contract with the teachers' union in October that he said raised the cost of instruction by 7.8 percent. (A district spokeswoman said the cost of instruction increased by 4.5 percent.) Regarding the public comment period at meetings, Lester said the board had already moved to eliminate it on two occasions. "They basically are trying to limit controversy and dissension," he said. He also criticized the appointment of several of trustee Gina Guma's relatives in the past year, saying it eroded the public trust, and that he would work to avoid such a practice. (A district spokeswoman said two of Guma's relatives had been hired.)