Community to vote on Merrick School District budget

The Merrick School District Board of Education has adopted a budget for next school year that will, if approved by the community in the school vote on May 20, sustain level funding for most of the district’s functions and programs, according to Superintendent Dominick Palma.

The budget that the Merrick Board of Education approved stays below the district’s property-tax levy cap, or the maximum year-to-year tax levy increase the district could legally ask voters to approve by a simple majority.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed the property-tax levy cap in 2011. It restricts school districts from raising their property-tax levies from one year to the next by more than an amount that the state sets by formula. A district can override the cap, but to do so it must win 60 percent of the vote to pass the higher spending plan.

The proposed budget’s total tax levy is $37.73 million, a 1.44 percent increase from 2013-14.

Merrick property taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the increase. The budget agreement that Cuomo and the State Legislature struck this year included a plan to mail rebate checks to taxpayers in districts that did not exceed cap. The cap that the state set for Merrick for 2014-15 was 1.44 percent.

The budget “maintains all of our services and staff,” Palma said. “The children will continue to receive an excellent education. We paid attention to making sure we maintain facilities … and we’re continuing to improve our instructional technology. This is a very forward-looking budget. This in not scrimping. This is going to continue to maintain a high-quality education for the children. And we’re doing it all under the tax cap, and with a historically low budget-to-budget increase. As far back as our records go, the budget-to-budget increase has never been this low.”

Palma said there would be one less sixth-grade classroom teacher at Chatterton School in the fall, which he said is due to declining student enrollment. He also said the district is dipping into its appropriated fund balance. As it did last year, the district will use $1.65 million of its reserves to balance the budget, according to Palma.