By Doug Miller
The school board will now work with the public to come up with a final number, which residents will vote on May 17. The final tax levy will be determined by that number.
"This is a roll-over budget, with only the mandated increases," said Greenberg. "With this budget we will maintain all district programs and continue with favorable class sizes."
Certain parts of the budget formula are incomplete, he added; state aid figures will not be firmed up until the state announces its own budget, which is said to be imminent. However, Greenberg's budget estimates a decrease in state aid, to $16.9 million from $17.7 this year. It predicts a total non- property tax revenue decrease, to $23.64 million from $25 million this year.
Last week the district's Budget Advisory Committee recommended that the district jettison the four elementary-school guidance counselors. Greenberg's budget eliminates one of the positions and reassigns two to positions that pay less, for a total savings to the district of $50,844.
However, staff contractual pay raises total $3.8 million this year. In addition, the district must contribute $1.1 million to the teachers' retirement fund and another $555,000 to employee retirement funds.
Mindy Warshaw, a member of the budget committee and a frequent speaker at board meetings, has suggested that the district fight those payments through lobbying efforts, claiming that the payments offer teachers unfair protection from fluctuations in their pension investments, protections the average investor is not entitled to that are funded by taxpayers. The committee backed her on this suggestion, but Greenberg was mum on the subject.
The budget committee also suggested raising employee contributions for health insurance, hiring a full-time grant writer to help increase revenues, and freezing teachers' salaries. Greenberg said he was not permitted to discuss those matters, as the district is in negotiations with the teachers union over a new contract. He suggested that the district would consider hiring a grant writer once the budget was passed.
The current budget was passed narrowly by voters last year, when nearly half of Nassau County's school budgets were defeated, including those in neighboring Oceanside, West Hempstead (which serves Island Park) and Lawrence.
Greenberg and board trustees are forbidden by law from campaigning in favor of a school budget, but Greenberg offered an idea of the consequences of a budget defeat this year. If the district were to go to a contingency budget, he said, it would still include a 2.46 percent increase to cover its contractual obligations, and the cost to the taxpayer would still jump 10.31 percent.
"Hopefully, that is not a conversation we will have to have," Greenberg said.
Meanwhile, he said, owners of a home carrying Long Beach's average assessment of $397,800 paid $4,400 in taxes last year, but under this budget they would pay $3,992, provided the home had not increased in value in the past 12 months. Greenberg conceded that was a big "if."
But Warshaw, an accountant employed by the city, challenged those numbers, saying that by coincidence, her home had almost that exact valuation last year, when she paid considerably less than $4,400, but she would only pay slightly less than $3,992 this year.
"Well, then that's good news," Greenberg said.
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