By Dana Williams
The budget is the district's spending plan, which was made available to the public since the school boards begin their budget work sessions last month.
Malverne
The Malverne School Board adopted a $43.5 million budget for the 2008-09 school year at its monthly meeting on April 8. The proposed budget calls for a 4.73 percent increase in spending, $1.9 million more than the current budget. The increase, school officials said, is the lowest proposed budget hike that District 12 has had in nine years. The budget also calls for a projected $1.2 million or 3.97 percent tax levy increase. The levy is the amount that is needed to meet the school district's budget after the district applies for state aid and other sources of income. Under the proposed budget and projected tax levy, the average homeowner will pay a yearly tax increase of $195.80, school officials said.
District 12's Superintendent Dr. James Hunderfund said the school board was able to lower the tax levy from 5.35 percent after Malverne netted an additional $608,707 in state aid on April 9. Malverne is slated to see a total of $8,668,412 in state aid or 12.75 percent more than its school aid for the current year.
School officials in Malverne said the budget increase is partially due to state mandates such as increases in employee benefits - which constitutes 18.25 percent of the budget and will rise $501,994 or 6.75 percent this year - and other circumstances beyond their control. "The increase in employee benefits, for example, are required by state law in the pension systems," Hunderfund explained. "There is a percentage increase that the state requires every year … and by law, we have to contribute to the pension system."
The instruction portion of the proposed District 12 budget, however, comprises the largest part at 63.63 percent. School officials will use the money for a number of new items for the upcoming school year. At the high school level, officials are adding several elective courses in math, science, social studies, world languages and music, which they believe will enhance the school's 95 percent college-bound graduation rate.
At the elementary school level, the proposed budget also provides a new instrumental music program for fourth grade students and additional club activities for students. School officials, Hunderfund said, plan to establish several clubs for the students throughout the school year after they survey students, parents and teachers to find out what clubs are most desired.
Schools throughout the district will also receive new SMART Boards and computers in their libraries, labs and classrooms. "To continue to use technology to help our students, we are adding SMART Boards to designated classrooms next year," Hunderfund said. "All school buildings are getting at least one more … and the newer ones are portable so they will be able to go from classroom to classroom."
School officials also project that District 12's enrollment will increase by 1.9 percent in the upcoming school year, which was also considered when they were creating the proposed budget. "In this district, we have projected that we will have in-migration, which means that we will have kids added to various grade levels throughout the district." Hunderfund said. "This could be kids moving into the district and kids who are transferring into the district from private or parochial schools."
The proposed budget, school officials said, will also provide expanded athletic teams and intramural opportunities for middle and high school students as well as funding for necessary grounds and building improvements districtwide. `
West Hempstead
Members of the West Hempstead School Board adopted a $52.6 million budget for the upcoming school year last Tuesday. The budget calls for a $1,840,697 or 3.63 percent increase in spending from the current budget.
Despite the overall increase, school officials project that the proposed budget will raise the tax levy, which is the amount of money that taxpayers will have to pitch in to meet the budget number, by no more than 0.77 percent. Under the proposed budget, the property tax levy is $35,460,058. West Hempstead's two-year average tax levy increase, school officials said, is also less than 1 percent.
On April 9, state officials announced that West Hempstead will get $8,942,483 in state aid for the upcoming school year; a 18.38 percent increase from the current year. State officials such as Sen. Dean Skelos and Assemblyman Tom Alfano were able to lobby for an additional $878,469 in aid for the district.
Richard Cunningham, the district's assistant superintendent of business and operations, said the projected tax increase is also due to the district's efforts to find other sources of revenue to lower the tax burden on residents.
"We continue to look for ways to consolidate our services with other school districts in purchasing, maintenance contracts, transportation and other areas to help keep taxes down," Cunningham said. "We have done the best we can to keep the tax levy increase as low as possible."
There are also a number of new jobs in the district's proposed 2008-2009 school year budget. School officials are looking to add additional reading and special education teachers as well as staffing for a new kindergarten through second grade Foreign Language program. "We haven't determined a foreign language just yet, but we're proposing that this be a new program in the district," Cunningham said. "We also see a need for support in reading, so we're adding reading teachers at all levels." A new administrative staff member -- whose role will be to oversee services and other items in line with state mandates -- will also be added.
Additionally, the district will improve its instructional technology with more SMART Boards and computers. The district's instruction costs total an estimated $28.8 million in the proposed budget, $1,134,604 more than the current budget.
"We are also budgeting to enhance a number of curriculum areas," Cunningham said, "including social studies, English-language arts, elementary foreign language and geometry."
Building improvements and enhancing security at all schools in the district has also been calculated into the proposed budget. Cunningham said officials are looking to enhance the functions of the security cameras at all locations within the district.
"We want the cameras to record information over a long period of time," he explained. "Also, with our security, we want to make sure that we have everything in place, so that we can properly track the location of all of our students."
The budget benefits residents whose children attend private and parochial schools as well. Some of the district's school budget will fund textbooks, computer software, health services, among others, for more than 1,300 students who attend a private or parochial school.
Comments about this story? DWilliams@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 282.
