Thursday, October 1, 2026
North Shore School District has announced its initial $129 million budget proposal for the 2026-2027 school year, a 2.9 percent increase from the approved 2025-2026 budget. Additions to classes and supplies throughout the district are included, and there are no cuts to positions or programs.
According to Superintendent Chris Zulbionis, the district is still affected by the 2022 settlement between Nassau County and Long Island Power Authority Glenwood Landing, but in a less substantial way. North Shore is losing roughly $80 thousand in revenue for the 2026-2027 school year. Zublionis said, in an interview in the days following the board meeting, that the 2026-2027 budget will not be as significantly impacted by the settlement as budgets in previous years, such as 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. He added that the greater concern is more revenue loss in 2027-2028.
North Shore is working with legislators to gain information on how much the district could lose that year. According to Zublionis, answers will arrive no later than January of 2027. At the initial budget presentation on Feb. 26, Zublionis compared the situation to scaling a mountain with more work to be done.
“We’re at the top of this plateau of this mountain that we climbed, see some other mountains in the distance,” he said. “Don’t know how tall they are, and so there is a lack of clarity on some possible mountains that we might find next year.”
Increases in the budget come largely from employee benefits, contractual salary increases and special education services that schools are required to provide. The current budget proposal includes a 2.3 percent increase in the tax levy, roughly even with the amount by which the district is allowed to raise it.
“When we put the budget together in its most basic form,” James Pappas, assistant superintendent for business, said at the board meeting, “we’re putting together a balanced budget, balancing the expenses such as personnel and benefits, capital projects and material supplies that we use every day for the students, with revenue, state aid, other revenues, and, of course, the tax levy.”
North Shore did not raise taxes the maximum amount in years when the district was most affected by the LIPA settlement and the maximum was higher, at around 3 percent or more.
Zublionis, in the same interview, echoed Pappas’ point about balancing the budget.
“It’s really a continuation of what we’ve been doing,” he explained. “We’ve been trying to keep (the tax levy) as low as possible while preserving programs and personnel for our kids.”
Among the additional classes for which the budget would allow are increased special education services and new Advanced Placement courses. The proposal includes more co-taught classes in elementary schools to make learning more accessible.
There are currently many students who must move between elementary schools in order to get the co-teaching services they need. Zublionis said this is something the district is hoping to mitigate.
“There are a lot of students in that program,” he said. “So hopefully, if this budget passes, we’ll move away from that and have (a co-taught class) in every grade level at every elementary school.”
Two Advanced Placement courses, computer principles and human geography, could be added to North Shore High School for ninth grade students. Ninth graders are required to take English research and writing lab in addition to their regular English class. This is also the grade level where high school students are required to take a health class.
According to Zublionis, having to take English lab and health class simultaneously leaves ninth grade students without much flexibility or choice in their schedules. He said the implementation of computer principles and human geography would give students more options.
Ninth grade students who want to take one of the new Advanced Placement courses would be able to take that class in place of English lab if they and their guidance counselor decide it is an appropriate fit.
Zublionis noted that other smaller additions in the budget such as new choral risers for the high school music department and cameras for high school photography students are “directly going to help students.”
In the event that the budget fails when the community votes on it in May, the district will have the option to either revise the budget and hold another vote or go straight to a contingency budget. If a revised budget fails in a second vote, the district must go to a contingency budget.
North Shore could choose to delay the bond projects the community approved on Feb. 10 if a contingency budget forces the need for cuts. Delaying bond projects would give the district funds to use elsewhere if it is losing money from a budget failure.
The board of education will hold its first budget review meeting on Thursday, and the budget vote and election of trustees is currently set for May 19.
