N. Merrick schools finish budget, community to vote

The North Merrick School District Board of Education this month 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 David Feller.

Though the board passed the budget at its meeting on April 8, district officials told the Herald Life Tuesday that a copy of the budget was not yet available.

“All programs, support services and co-curricular activities are fully maintained,” Feller wrote in an email. He acknowledged, however, that there will be one fewer classroom teacher at Camp Avenue Elementary School in the fall, which he and other district officials have said at recent board meetings is due to declining student enrollment.

Some Camp Avenue parents expressed dissatisfaction with this explanation at the board’s March 18 meeting. “Camp Avenue second-graders are still very large classes, still a lot of issues in the grade, and we really would like you to consider making four sections next year,” said Tiffany Joosten.

Jennifer Hyland agreed with Joosten. “This is the second year in a row that we’ve gotten rid of a teacher,” Hyland pointed out. “… Our tax dollars coming in keep going up … every year, so why can’t we keep the headcount we have and just maybe have a lower class size? That’s what I don’t understand.”

School Trustee Linda Fuller told the parents that there was no other way for the district to achieve the savings necessary to balance its budget. Board President Neil Brown remarked that his daughter’s class lost one section as she moved through the school district, but there were no appreciable negative consequences.

“When my daughter was in fourth grade, it went from four sections to three,” Brown said. “… She lived. She’s OK.”

The budget that the North Merrick Board of Education adopted 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.