Residents on both sides of school budget

Across Glen Head, signs of support for, or opposition to, the North Shore School District budget were posted throughout the downtown area and neighborhoods.

Inside the North Shore High School library in Glen Head, district officials and residents met for three-and-a-half-hour Board of Education meeting on May 6 at which the budget was just one of many topics of discussion.

The $111.6 million spending plan, Proposition 1, will be put to a vote next Tuesday. It is 1.2 percent larger than the current budget, and includes a 1.43 percent increase in the tax levy, the maximum allowed under the state tax cap.

The spending plan, according to a mailer sent to voters, addresses pandemic-related variables, maintains class sizes, continues the implementation of the 2018-23 Strategic Plan and preserves all educational programs, athletics, art and extracurricular activities.

Voters will also weigh in on Proposition 2, which would establish a Capital Reserve Fund not to exceed $8.3 million for infrastructure projects including field lighting at the high school, the installation of artificial-turf fields at schools throughout the district, wellness centers for the high school and middle school and the replacement of a track surface, among others.

Toward the end of the meeting, attendees had the chance to address the board. “North Shore Schools system spends a huge amount of money per capita for their students,” Robert Mattner, a 31-year resident of Sea Cliff, said. “The rub for me, quite honestly — since the budget has been adopted, I’m sure there’s nothing we can do about it now — is that we have a bunch of administrators.”

Mattner argued that having administrators for school subjects like history, science and math might not be a necessary expenditure. Rather, it might be beneficial to have “teachers of excellence” who could fulfill administrative functions during off periods.

Mattner’s son, Jonathan, a North Shore High School 2013 graduate, was likely the most recent graduate who attended the meeting. He asking trustees if they considered reducing the tax levy increase below the maximum 1.43 percent because of the funding the district received from the state and federal government.

“I just don’t believe the tax hike is at all necessary, or at least maxing out,” Jonathan Mattner said. “The board of trustees, over the years that I’ve been alive, has consistently maxed out on their spending. I don’t think it’s reasonable. I don’t think it’s equitable.”

Roger Friedman of Sea Cliff, on the other hand, expressed his support for the budget proposal. “It is fundamentally not good budgeting practice to use a one-time shot of revenue in your operating fund,” Friedman said. “The question becomes, what do you do next year when you don’t have it in your operating fund? It has to come from somewhere. So it either has to come from programs, reserves or the tax levy.”

Voting will take place next Tuesday, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., in the North Shore High School gym. For more information on the budget, go to northshoreschools.org.