School spending plan would hold line on taxes

School officials have floated their proposed school budget for 2011-12, which they described as a spending plan with modest increases during tough economic times, one that maintains programs and services with no growth in the district’s operating budget and no increase in the tax levy.

At a meeting on Tuesday attended by more than 200 residents, officials proposed a $118.6 budget for 2011-12, an increase of $2.2 million, or 1.86 percent, over the current spending plan.

The proposal comes during a period of what school officials described as draconian cuts in state education aid. Although Long Beach stands to lose roughly $4.2 million, Superintendent Dr. Robert Greenberg and Chief Operating Officer Michael DeVito said they are planning to use $4.4 million in reserve funds to offset the impact of Governor Cuomo’s proposed cuts.

Additionally, school officials said that the tax levy — the total amount raised through property taxes — would remain unchanged, at $88.9 million.

“The idea is to keep the school district in a very strong position to continue its array of programs and services,” Greenberg said.

Greenberg and DeVito attributed the spending increase to $2.2 million the district has to pay in serial bond interest, after voters approved a $92.7 million school preservation plan funded by a bond in 2009. The payments kick in next year, DeVito said. He added, however, that the district’s interest on the bond could increase by 60 percent due to the threat of litigation from the Lido Home Civic Association, whose members maintain that school officials did not properly assess the impact on the community when they proposed a new athletic field for football games at Long Beach High School.

While the proposed budget maintains current programs and services — including the elementary-school foreign language program — officials are hoping to eliminate 13 full-time positions, although administrators attributed the cuts to declining multi-year enrollment trends rather than reductions in state aid. DeVito said after the meeting that administrators had not yet determined which positions would be cut.