Second budget café 'productive' school official says

The last time several dozen West Hempstead residents gathered at the West Hempstead Middle School cafeteria for a budget “café,” which was in late November, they developed an outline of what they value in their children’s education now and in the future. When they met there again on Jan. 10, they worked on prioritizing those values and discussing how the district should distribute financial resources.

“I think it was productive,” Deputy Superintendent Richard Cunningham said. “People came away knowing more than when they came in.”

This time around, people wanted to see more numbers, and to make it easier for them to understand where the district’s money goes, administrators presented a budget break-down analysis they titled “What if we imagine that the total budget was $100?” Assigning smaller values to budget items helped highlight the areas on which the district spends the most, including transportation, which accounts for about 10 percent of the total budget.

Many café participants discussed way to lower the cost of transportation, which is higher in West Hempstead than in other school districts because of the number of in-district students who attend private or parochial schools, according to Cunningham. He and other administrators were expected to present an update to Board of Education trustees at their Jan. 17 meeting about recommendations a consultant had made last year after exploring the district’s transportation situation.

People were, however, happy to see that the more than half of the total budget expenses goes directly to education.

Although the budget cafés have proved helpful to the district thus far, administrators are unclear about whether they will hold another.