By:Nicole Falco
The reduction in staff will save the district more than $1.1 million in salary and benefits, according to Dr. Marc F. Bernstein, superintendent of schools. The proposed budget was presented to the high school Board of Education during a public work session Feb. 7 at Central High School. The board and the 20 or so residents and staff who attended the meeting listened to a presentation by Bernstein and Al Chase, assistant superintendent for finance and operations. The board now has the opportunity to review the proposal and recommend changes. It is expected to adopt a final budget proposal, including any revisions it makes, at its March meeting. The public vote is scheduled for May 18.
The proposed budget calls for a 9.94 percent increase, approximately $6.9 million, over the current $69.2 million budget. The estimated tax rate increase is 12.35 percent. A more precise tax rate increase will be available as the budget process develops.
The main factors driving the $6.9 million budget increase are costs mandated either by the state or by contracts. The district expects a $2.6 million increase in its contributions to health insurance and staff retirement funds. Contractual obligations, including staff contracts, teacher step movements, special education services, summer school, transportation and insurance are expected to account for $4.1 million of the increase, according to Chase. Also, state aid is almost flat, again, this year, according to the governor-s proposal, released last month. The high school district expects a $166,000 increase in state aid for next year.
Cheryl Tansey, co-president of the James A. Dever School PTA, said the proposed tax rate increase might have parents screaming. After hearing the budget presentation, Tansey said that while she understood the reasons for the increase, she expected she would have a hard time selling it to District 13 parents. (Tansey attended the work session as a representative of the four District 13 PTAs.) Last year District 13 shouldered a disproportionate share of the tax burden at the high school level, though that is not expected to be the case this year, Chase said.
Of the decision to cut staff, Bernstein said, There aren-t many areas [to cut] when you-re an educational institution that has the prime goal of teaching, which is very labor-intensive. Bernstein said the only alternative to cutting staff would be to present a larger increase to the public or begin making cuts to its educational programs. If the district carried over its current budget, without making the staff reductions, the budget to budget increase would be approximately 12 percent, Bernstein said.
The proposed staff cuts would translate into an average increase of 1 1/2 students per class throughout the district, which currently has classes averaging 25 to 27 students. Though the district, through Nassau BOCES, predicts a district-wide enrollment increase of 70 students next year, enrollment is expected to begin to decrease within the next three years.
An increase in class size was not welcome news to parents, including Triphon Kollitides, the parent of a seventh-grade South High student, who attended the work session. While he expressed concerns about overcrowding in the district, he said the quality of education in Valley Stream is excellent. In addition, Kollitides and others, including Pat Russo, co-president of the Central-Memorial PTSA, brought up the issue of non-resident students illegally attending Valley Stream schools. The rumored notion that the percentage of illegal students in the district is as high as 20 percent is false, according to Bernstein and the board. That-s a very dangerous thing to be bantered about in the community, Bernstein said.
The district continues its efforts to stop or weed out illegal students. Of the 91 students who attempted to register between October and Jan. 30, 69 were admitted, 18 did not complete the process and four were denied admission after a custodial hearing determined they did not reside in the district, according to figures released during this month-s Board of Education meeting.
The proposed budget includes very few new initiatives. An increase of $108,000 is being proposed for building improvements. Prior to the work session, the board, district staff and members of the community toured each of the district-s four schools, identifying needed and wanted infrastructure improvements. Since it would cost more than $1 million to complete every item on the list, and the total fund allocation for building improvements in next year-s proposed budget is $315,000, certain items were identified as priorities by the district engineer. Priority items include those that are either required by law or necessary to maintain safety. They include a sidewalk replacement in front of Memorial Junior High, a partial roof replacement at Central High, the installation of ramps to the boys- and girls- gyms at North High and the re-lining of running lanes on South-s track.
The proposed budget also includes the creation of an additional seventh-grade special-education inclusion class at Memorial, South and North. The initiative calls for one additional special-education teacher in each building, in order to decrease the number of students in each inclusion section from 11 to seven or eight.
The district also hopes to purchase between 75 and 90 wireless computers, to be divided among the schools. Included in a $38 million bond approved by voters in 1998 was the allocation of $6 million to create the infrastructure necessary to purchase computers, create computer labs and make the district Internet-ready. The wireless PCs would be used to enhance the new seventh-grade writing program, which calls for a second period of English, and would give the district the chance to use the technology infrastructure already in place, Bernstein said. The computer-essentials class, now taught in seventh grade, will be eliminated, since many of the skills emphasized in that class will be taught in the writing program.
We need to improve the writing skills of all our seventh-graders, Bernstein said. We want to begin a greater emphasis on writing with our seventh-grade students.
Finally, Bernstein announced that the district would be evaluating its SAT review program and its Science Research Program. Both programs are considered important by the district, but have not had the success hoped for.
