By Jesse Serwer
The suggested price tag for school operations has increased, despite the fact that there are only a handful of proposed improvements and additions to existing programs and staffing - the result of an extremely high level of unfunded mandates coming from the state and federal governments.
"We got it in as low as we could, but it's a little frustrating to have a significant budget increase that just maintains what we have without any kind of frills," said Board of Education Trustee Lorrie Brady. "We were overwhelmed with different mandates that keep adding to the cost of our existing programs."
The proposed budget will go before residents at a public hearing April 20, and will be put to a vote on May 17 at South Side High School.
"There is a confluence of bad news that keeps hitting us, and regulations that are being imposed on the school districts with costs that have to come from the taxpayers," said district Superintendent Dr. William Johnson. "The big issue we had to deal with was [the Governmental Accounting Standards Board], and the board decided to put a plan in place, and deal with it in pieces."
In order to comply with new Governmental Accounting Standards Board regulations requiring districts to put teacher retirement funds in accrual for a year, the district must set aside a total of $1.3 million over four years, which it opted to pay at $325,000 a year over four years. "It is utterly absurd that we have to put it in the budget," said Brady. "The taxpayers' money sits in the bank for a year without much rhyme or reason."
In addition to the GASB regulations, mandates derived from President Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation directed the school to set aside $95,000 for a five-year building-condition survey and $85,000 for record keeping related to testing in grades three through eight. Because of the tight squeeze, board members said they were forced to compromise their goal of reducing class size in grades three, four and five to 25 students per classroom, but will be able to reduce the size from 28 students to 26.
The proposed budget includes the addition of just one new enrollment-driven hire to its teaching staff - a middle-school special-education teacher. Five teaching assistants will also be added.
Although the proposed budget is higher overall, the increase is less than last year, when it jumped 7.35 percent. The current budget totals $71,318,555, up from $66,466,671 in 2003-04.
"I can't speak for all of the residents in the community, but I think they might have a hard time getting the public to back this budget, because there is nothing in it that is new or is an enlargement," said United Taxpayers of Rockville Centre President Sue Oppenheimer, who publishes and distributes the "Your Schools" pamphlet to homes throughout the village. "The only thing I think they can sell it on is that they have reduced the cap size within the elementary schools. That is important to these schools, where they are running at capacity."
Comments about this story? JSerwer@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 221.
