East Rockaway Schools' investment plan open to public comment
The East Rockaway Board of Education approved the preliminary Smart Schools Investment Plan on Dec. 15, which is available for public comment on the district website for 30 days. The application for funding would then be sent to the state’s education department, and would include improvements to the areas of school connectivity, mobile devices, and high-tech security.
The Smart Schools Bond Act was approved by voters in a statewide referendum held in November 2014. The SSBA authorized the issuance of $2 billion of general obligation bonds to finance improved educational technology and infrastructure for school districts throughout the state. All districts are required to submit a plan to demonstrate how the funds would be used to provide the educational tools and opportunities students need to succeed in the 21st century economy.
“The steps for this preliminary plan are first to submit our technology plan survey to the state for approval — we did that in October,” said John Piccarella, the assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction, and technology. “We now are required to use that as a reference for what projects we would like to fund.”
The state education department a breakdown of the $2 billion distributed to school districts on its website, and while East Rockaway was allocated a total of $587,387 by the state, according to Piccarella, the preliminary plan only calls for $236,000 of that to be spent in the first year.
James Robinson, the assistant superintendent for finance and operations, said, “The way this whole bond is structured is we have to spend the money first, and then we get reimbursed.” According to Robinson, the district has planned for this in developing its budget, so that most of the upfront amount would be available initially, and then each subsequent reimbursement of that cost would fund the next year’s outlined projects. “At the end of the cycle we’d have all that money back,” Robinson said. “We’d be out of pocket, basically zero.”
