The Malverne and West Hempstead school district boards of education held their initial budget meetings for the 2026-27 school year on March 3 and 10, respectively.
All numbers reported for both schools are pending, because the state budget and with it the amount of state aid that will be available to the districts, have yet to be finalized.
Malverne
“We will maintain robust athletic and arts programs, and this is also fiscally responsible for our community,” Malverne school board President Josephine Bottitta said of the district’s preliminary $75.7 million spending plan. “It maintains the tax levy at the tax cap, and it reflects our priority of maintaining a safe and appropriate learning environment within our schools.”
The district plans to increase spending by 2.36 percent or about $1.75 million next year but is expecting to receive about 0.4 percent less in total state aid, including the minimum 1 percent increase in foundation aid.
Transportation services districtwide are expected to increase by 16 percent, or about $840,000, to $6.1 million. Insurance and employee benefits expenditures are projected to rise by about 8 percent, or $730,000, to $9.8 million. The predicted foundation aid, about $140,000, would cover less than 10 percent of the increase in total mandatory expenditures.
Board trustees also discussed the district’s decreasing enrollment and the issue of charter schools, which, they said, are drawing more students away from public schools and adversely affecting state aid.
“Charter schools put the burden on the public schools to pay the tuition for the charter school,” Trustee Jeanne D’Esposito said. “If a child moves to a charter school, we pay $25,000. If charter schools are considered public, the state should pay for them like they are public schools. [Charter schools] don’t have the same regulatory oversight.”
The district’s enrollment is projected to drop from 627 students to 600 in 2026-27. “Enrollment is what dictates state aid,” D’Esposito said.
West Hempstead
The West Hempstead district’s preliminary spending plan for 2026-27 totals about $85 million.
“It is important to understand that a significant portion of our budget is dictated by factors outside the district’s control,” Brian Phillips, the district’s assistant superintendent for business and operations, said. “These costs include transportation services.”
The district expects to spend about $12 million on transportation next year, an increase of roughly $2 million. Over the past decade, spending in this category has nearly tripled, growing by more than $8 million. It now accounts for 14.1 percent of the total proposed budget, about 7 percentage points more than in 2015-16.
“West Hempstead school district transports over 1,200 students to over 100 different schools, making transportation one of the district’s most significant fiscal pressures on the budget,” Phillips said.
The same trend can be seen in the district’s health insurance expenses: They are projected to total $13.3 million, an increase of about $700,000 over the current year and some $5.7 million in the past decade.
“Health insurance remains a volatile and expensive cost for the district,” Phillips said. “Family insurance premiums have exceeded $40,000 annually for the last couple of years; these rates are set at the state level without input from school districts.”
Health insurance will account for an estimated 15.6% percent of the district’s total spending in 2026-27, slightly less than this year’s 15.8% percent but 2.3 percentage points more than a decade ago.
School board trustees also expressed their concerns about the growing popularity of charter schools, telling district parents that they would be petitioning state legislators to limit these schools, though they recognized that the establishment of the Diamond Charter School, set to open in September, was already approved.
“That decision was already made, but the resolution we passed was to ask legislators to work against use of public funds for charter schools,” board President Karen Brohm said.
The budget votes in both districts will be held on May 19, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The Malverne vote will be held in the middle school’s gym, and the West Hempstead vote in the secondary school’s north gym.
