By Victoria Caruso
Gov. George Pataki recently released state aid for education projections for 2001-2002, and the numbers aren't pretty, as far as local school officials are concerned.
Once again, Bellmore-Merrick districts are receiving only minimal aid increases. The Merrick Elementary District's aid next year is expected to rise 2.2 percent, or roughly $89,000; North Merrick's by 1.11 percent, or $56,000; Bellmore's by 3.11 percent, or $75,000; North Bellmore's by 1.39 percent, or $111,000; and the Central High School District's by 2.03 percent, or $269,000.
Those figures hardly represent the type of state aid packages for which area school officials were hoping. In recent years, they say, districts have been hard pressed to develop expensive tutorial programs to help students meet new State Education Department exam and graduation requirements. By comparison to what districts are spending, they have received little monetary support from the state, officials say.
Dr. Thomas Caramore, the Central superintendent, said that his district's budgets have over the past three years "included funds for smaller class sizes, academic-support programs, new textbooks, a middle-school summer program and new science labs at two of our high schools to accommodate a three-year science requirement. The total cost for all new programs between the 1998-1999 and the 2001-2002 school year will be more than $1.3 million."
Caramore also noted that, over the past decade, the portion of Central's budget that is paid for with state aid has diminished. "In 1989, state aid represented 23 percent of the high school district's budget," he said. Next year, it will amount to only 19 percent.
James Parla, the North Bellmore superintendent, said "The increases in the state aid for any of the districts, including North Bellmore, are not keeping pace with the growing costs and the need of more resources to address higher standards. We would like
to see state aid become a higher percentage of our budgets in order to give us the resources we need without going to the taxpayers."
School districts are also confronting non-academic expenses that have only cropped recently. Dr. Ronald Smith, Merrick superintendent, said, "We face a 14-percent increase in health-insurance costs and increases in transportation. As any homeowner knows, fuel oil and gas prices have skyrocketed, so we will be facing an increase in utility expenses."
In the end, higher education costs, without higher state aid, mean higher taxes for residents, educators say.
Bellmore-Merrick school officials lobbied local legislators for a greater share of state aid during a recent breakfast. State Assemblywoman Kathleen Murray (R-Levittown) said that, in the past, districts have traditionally received a bigger share of education aid once the state budget has been finalized. "I have great faith," said Murray, "that we in the legislature will restore the cuts Gov. Pataki proposed."
The state budget is slated for approval in April, but final okay for the spending plan has often not come until the summer in past years.
