By Mike Schnitzel
District 13¹s budget proposal calls for a 6.5 percent, or $2.21 million, increase for the 2006-07 school year.
According to Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Lison, the Board of Education's goal in preparing the spending proposal was to produce a "fiscally responsible plan maintaining [the district's] comprehensive educational programs and facilities." The $36.27 million spending plan was presented at the March 28 board meeting at the James A. Dever School.
Besides the now typical increases in contractual and mandated costs, including salaries, utilities and health and retirement benefits, Lison said that the budget increase can also be attributed in part to the addition of three faculty positions in the interest of maintaining class sizes and programs, and the restoration of full-time kindergarten aides, whose positions were cut to part-time after the defeat of last year's initial budget proposal.
Lison and Meredith Brosnan, assistant superintendent for business, said that the board made an effort to keep expenditures as low as possible to prevent another first-vote defeat of the budget. "We have pretty much put forth the bare minimum," said Brosnan.
Typical District 13 homeowners would see an increase of 7.19 percent on the elementary education portion of their tax bills. However, Brosnan said that the same homeowners would actually see decreases in the amount they pay for all education, including the High School District. "Due to the most recent change in the rate of assessment for residential property, the average District 13 taxpayer will pay less school tax this year," Brosnan explained.
The previous assessment rate for Class I residential property was .5 percent of full value. This year it was reduced to .25 percent of full value. Brosnan said that the average homeowner paid a combined school tax of $5,955 last year, and would pay approximately $5,840 if the proposed budgets of District 13 and the High School District pass. A January estimate from the Nassau County Assessor's Office said the average home value in District 13 was $418,000. Brosnan said that a new estimate would be available from the assessor's office "some time in the next few days."
"We need to have a budget passed the first time," said Lison. "Aside from being very efficient, we were lucky with how the assessments broke this year."
The new teaching positions being planned by the district include a full-time math specialist to work with struggling students and take part in staff development activities with faculty members; a technology specialist, who Lison said would be a "tool-kit type of person," to take care of computer repairs and upkeep; and a part-time speech teaching position expanded to full-time. A part-time custodian would also be added at the Howell Road School.
If the budget is approved, several capital projects will also be undertaken by the district in the coming school year, according to Brosnan. There will be a roof replacement at Dever, and tile flooring in the music room at Wheeler Avenue School will be replaced. Brosnan said that the combined cost of the projects would be about $111,000.
Lison said that Phase II of the three-phase fund-raising project for the Howell Road parking lot would be undertaken during the 2006-07 school year. She explained that the parking lot would be replaced once all of the funds were collected for the project, and she hopes work will start on the project in the summer of 2007. Lison said that $210,000 of funding would be appropriated for Phase II. A total of $65,000 was appropriated during the first phase of fund-raising.
Brosnan said that District 13 is currently slated to receive $8.4 million in state aid next year, about $500,000 more than this year. She said the district hopes to use most of the money to help alleviate the burden on taxpayers, and that a review of expenditures would determine how much money could be used for that purpose.
The fate of the proposed budget, and school budgets across Long Island, will be decided when voters head to the polls on May 16.
Comments about this story? MSchnitzel@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 208.
