School budgets pass by narrow margins in O'side, Island Park
In narrow win, Hayes elected to school board in I.P.
The Island Park and Oceanside school budgets passed by relatively narrow margins on Tuesday, and, in a stunning upset in the Island Park school board race, candidate Richie Hayes clinched a five-year seat by just 10 votes.
In Oceanside, 1,936 residents voted in favor of a $128.5 million budget, a 1.98 percent increase over the current spending plan with a tax levy increase of 2.29 percent, while 1,436 people voted against it. In Island Park 502 residents voted in favor of a $32.5 million budget, a $1.3 million increase over this year's, while 448 people voted against the plan. The figures include absentee ballots.
The budgets maintain academic programs and extracurricular activities in the districts.
While the election results indicate that residents in both communities were nearly split over the budgets, the passage of the spending plans means that both school districts were able to weather a stormy economic climate — a nagging recession and the thought of higher school taxes by many residents threatened to undermine budgets throughout Nassau County.
Residents also turned out to cast their vote for school board trustee in Oceanside and Island Park. In Oceanside, incumbents Bob Transom and Maryanne Lehrer, both unopposed, were re-elected to three-year terms. Transom received 2,080 votes, while Lehrer garnered 2,303. And, in a narrow race in Island Park, candidate Richie Hayes defeated his competitor, Richard Schurin, by only 10 votes, receiving 501 to Schurin's 491.
One source said that at one point, Schurin looked like the winner, when he was ahead by about nine votes earlier in the evening. But when the absentee ballots were tallied, Hayes came out ahead.
During his campaign, Hayes pledged to create a greater dialogue between the board and community; bring greater transparency to the board and work to keep residents more informed about school business, among other proposals. He also said that he'd work to find ways to cut costs, eliminate waste and preserve educational and extracurricular programs in the district.
