Long Beach school budget passes

Voters approved the Long Beach School District’s $122.1 million budget for 2012-13 by a healthy, 66 percent margin on Tuesday. In preliminary results released on Tuesday, the budget received 1,841 votes in favor of the spending plan, and 936 votes against it, according to the district.

The 3.74 percent tax levy increase will help reduce the principal the district must pay on a $98 million bond to fund its school-preservation plan, approved by voters in 2009. The spending plan approved on Tuesday does not increase the operating portion of the budget and maintains all programs for students.

Though 2,777 residents turned out to vote on the budget and race for school board trustee, school officials said that 18 affidavit ballots still needed to be validated, and a special meeting was slated for Wednesday.

Affidavit ballots are ballots used in elections when a person's right to vote in a particular district is in dispute. The Nassau County Board of Elections will check its records to make sure that the votes were indeed eligible and made at the correct polling site, school officials said.

As of Tuesday night, school officials said that the race for two seats on the Board of Education was too close to call. However, early results on Tuesday showed that candidate Stewart Mininsky — who was running against incumbents Darlene Tangney and Gina Guma — had pulled the largest number of votes for one seat, while the other seat was still too close to call. School officials declined to release those numbers until all of the affidavit ballots are validated.

“We will have to review those 18 ballots tomorrow ... to make sure those votes count,” said Schools Superintendent David Weiss.