By Dana Williams and Andrew Hackmack
The West Hempstead School District is slated to see total aid increase from $7.5 million to $8 million, or 6.81 percent. The proposed budget provides the district with more funding for software, library and textbook costs as well as hardware and technology expenses.
School officials in West Hempstead said they are appreciative of the additional aid, but they are also concerned about the decreases in other areas such as High Tax Aid and BOCES and special services. The governor's proposed High Tax Aid is $250,829, nearly $99,000 less than the total for the current year. This aid is only available in counties where taxes are high, and Nassau is one of them.
"We're always pleased when our overall aid goes up, but a big concern for us is also the areas in the budget where we went down," said John Hogan, the district's superintendent of schools. "The aid is down Island-wide ... and that's something that we're also really concerned about, because we want to continue the level of services that we have always provided for our students."
The Malverne School District will receive roughly a 5 percent increase in state aid, to a little over $8 million. The proposed budget includes $189,273 for software, library and textbook aid, which is $24,915 more than this year's total. Malverne school officials were also pleased to see an increase of a little more than $3,000 in its hardware and technology aid.
However, Superintendent of Schools Dr. James Hunderfund said officials are still hoping that local lawmakers come through with more funding because, he said, the current proposal is not enough to meet the needs of the district's education programs. The budget includes a $77,521 decrease in BOCES and special services aid from the current total of $343,437. The district's High Tax Aid also dropped, from $248,626 to $198,669.
"We received an increase, but when you really read the governor's proposal, you see the cuts in certain important areas," Hunderfund said. "Our district's costs might go over this 5 percent increase, which means that we will have to make it up in some other way, and usually that's through our local taxes."
Valley Stream District 13, which serves many Malverne residents, is looking at an aid increase of 5 percent, to $9.3 million. Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Lison said she was pleasantly surprised that the governor left in the High Tax Aid item, which is about $331,000.
"We need it," Lison said. "Our cost of living is much, much higher."
For more than two decades, passage of the state budget was delayed beyond the April 1 deadline, which clouded the aid picture for school officials across New York, as districts went into their budget votes without clear revenue projections. More recently, the Legislature and governor have come to an agreement on or ahead of schedule.
The early news has helped both the Malverne and West Hempstead districts prepare for their annual school budget proposal presentations. Officials from both districts said the Legislature's decision about the governor's proposal would play a major role in the formulation of the districts' school budgets.
"At this point, we are looking at the governor's proposal ... and we're waiting to see what the Legislature does," Hogan said. "Then we'll have a better picture of where our district's budget is going to go."
Comments about this story? DWilliams@ liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 282.
