W.H. school budget levels with tax cap

At the Board of Education meeting on April 22, West Hempstead district administrators presented their 2014-15 spending plan, which leveled with this year’s 2 percent tax levy cap.

The spending plan totals $57.2 million, $1.56 million more than the current budget, with a budget-to-budget increase of 2.8 percent.

According to Richard Cunningham, the district’s deputy superintendent of business, administrators strove to preserve staff — despite previous budget cuts in faculty and staff and this year’s consolidation of an 8-period day at West Hempstead Middle School — to meet the needs of students, especially the district’s growing English as a Second Language population.

In order to maintain the district’s faculty, Cunningham said 21 administrative staff members agreed to a receive pay freeze in the upcoming year, which will keep the total payroll for administrators at $2.25 million.

“The tax levy laws are going to continue keeping revenues tight,” Cunningham said. “We as a school district have to continue our work to improve the level of education at West Hempstead.”

About 84 percent of spending next year will be directed to instruction, which includes teaching supplies and salaries, 8.6 percent will be allocated to the district’s capital projects — which will comprise $400,000 in ongoing renovations to the high school’s roof and a parking garage at Chestnut Street School — and almost 7.8 percent will go towards district operations. The district’s projected revenues in next year’s budget will also equal its projected expenses at $57 million.

Cunningham added that administrators worked to create a “freeze compliant budget,” with respect to the recently passed tax freeze in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2014-15 executive budget. This tax freeze, Cunningham said, will involve the state legislature sending the average homeowner a reimbursement check for the 1.42 tax levy increase later this fall, allowing them to still pay last year’s amount of $6,914 in taxes.